Record Numbers Joining SPEEA As Others Leave Boeing for Better Jobs
;SEATTLE---As negotiations enter a critical stage, a record number of Boeing technical workers are joining the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) as dues-paying members. During September and October, 840 Boeing employees joined SPEEA. September's total of 465 members is the most successful single recruiting month in the union's 55-year history.
"People are realizing their only hope for securing a good future for their families and the Boeing Company is to join forces and work together,'' said Charles Bofferding, executive director of SPEEA. SPEEA represents 23,000 engineers and other technical workers at Boeing. By law, SPEEA is required to provide services to all employees in their bargaining units.
Union surveys continue to show a general feeling among Boeing's technical workers that the company no longer values them. Salaries for Boeing technical workers are well below market standard for the industry. In addition, benefits packages, including health care and workforce training, have been targeted for cuts.
"Some officials at Boeing continue to sacrifice employees and customers to keep shareholders happy,'' said Bofferding. After dominating world airline sales for two decades, Boeing has been outsold 2 to 1 this year by rival Airbus Industries. On the employee front, technical workers are being lured away by other firms offering higher pay and better benefits.
"I have never seen employee moral so bad and the company so oblivious to what is happening,'' Bofferding said. "It's time to turn this ship around. People are realizing their best bet for doing that is to join SPEEA.'' While negotiations are entering the critical issues of pay and benefits, Bofferding caricaturized talks as "tenuous.'' "What they've shown so far is a continued reluctance to help find real solutions to employee and company problems,'' Bofferding said. "We want to help the company turn things around and the way to do that is to work together.''
Union officials had hoped Boeing negotiators would exhibit a greater willingness to work out problems. Without that willingness, Bofferding said top engineers and technical workers will continue to leave the company. "Nobody wants to work for a company that treats you like a number on a spreadsheet,'' Bofferding said. The drain, in effect, is a quiet strike.
"No one is out carrying picket signs but make no mistake -- employees are striking. They are striking out of Boeing with their feet,'' Bofferding said. "We don't want them to do that. We want to work with the company to rebuild our place in the world economy and make Boeing a great place to build a career.''
SPEEA members have designed every Boeing airplane and modification for more than 55 years. Their engineering and technical expertise is the brains and heart of the Boeing Company. Face to face negotiations, which started Monday, Oct. 25, continue.
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Record Numbers Joining SPEEA As Others Leave Boeing for Better Jobs
