Boeing, union reach agreement

Monday, March 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SEATTLE, March 17 â€“ Tentative agreement was reached early Friday to end a 38-day strike by Boeing Co. engineers and technical workers, and jubilant union leaders recommended approval.

Members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace will vote on the three-year contract offer Sunday, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director C. Richard Barnes said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

A statement issued by the union said picketing would continue until the pact is ratified. Barnes said he was optimistic about the prospects for approval.

â€œThe parties, both parties, worked extremely hard,â€ he said.

There seemed to be a genuine level of satisfaction among both parties. The union won two key demands â€“ cash bonuses totaling $2,500 over the next 12 months on top of pay raises that are largely guaranteed.

A company demand for first-time employee copayments toward health insurance premiums was dropped, and health coverage would be extended to unmarried domestic partners of the affected workers.

â€œWe wanted respect for our contributions and a better future for our families and our company,â€ SPEEA executive director Charles Bofferding said in the union statement. â€œWe believe the tentative agreement ... delivers on those demands and can make a strong company stronger.â€

Lawrence W. McCracken, a Boeing spokesman, said he had not seen the final settlement and could not answer questions about it.

â€œWeâ€™re very pleased that the two sides were able to work out this agreement with the help of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service,â€ McCracken said.

The settlement was announced about 3 a.m. Friday morning following talks that began Thursday morning at FMCS headquarters in Washington.

â€œWe are very pleased that the longest and largest white-collar labor dispute in the aerospace industry has been settled,â€ Barnes said in a news release. â€œI want to commend the leadership of the company and union for their hard work and their commitment to reaching this agreement.â€

The strike was the first full-scale walkout in the unionâ€™s history and the largest by white-collar workers in the United States. SPEEA called a one-day strike over stalled contract talks in 1991, then wound up accepting an offer that had previously been rejected.
Joining the latest round of talks for the first time were AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and James B. Dagnon, Boeingâ€™s senior vice president for personnel. Their presence â€œwas a tremendously important factor,â€ Barnes said.

He also praised the effort of FMCS Commissioner Rick Oglesby and Doug Hammond, the agencyâ€™s Seattle regional director. Hammond was credited with ending a 48-day strike by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers against Boeing in 1989 by the highly unusual tactic of submitting his own prosposal, which both sides then accepted.

Barnes said the SPEEA settlement was reached because of â€œsome new thinkingâ€ but would not disclose the source or nature of the breakthrough.

The settlement would end a dispute that began Feb. 9 when both units of the union rejected contract offers, one covering engineers, scientists and other professionals exempt from overtime and the other covering manual writers, computer programmers and other technical workers.

Key provisions of the settlement, as described on the unionâ€™s Web site, include:
Guaranteed pay increases of 3 percent a year in the professional unit and 4 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent for the technical unit. In addition, money would be set aside for discretionary pay hikes of 2, 1 and 1 percent for professionals and 1 percent a year for technicians, as well as for promotional increases of one-half of 1 percent a year in each unit. Past SPEEA contracts and previous offers have been based mainly on discretionary pay hikes.

Cash bonuses of $1,000 after 30 days, $500 following delivery of 225 planes this year and $1,000 after the delivery of 491 planes if that total is reached by March 1, 2001. If the targets are missed through no fault of SPEAA-covered workers, the bonuses would be paid anyway. None of the previous two offers included any bonuses.

Extension of health coverage to unmarried domestic partners, a provision Boeing offered to non-union workers earlier.

An increase in the standard retirement benefit to $50 from $40.

In addition, Boeing withdrew demands for monthly health insurance copayments, an increase in deductibles and reduced life insurance benefits.

The settlement followed increasing acrimony between the two sides in recent days.

On Monday, Allan R. Mulally, president of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, complained that some of the strikers were â€œmaliciously attacking our company and deliberately trying to destroy our reputationâ€ by writing letters to airline, government and college officials which said planes delivered during the strike were unsafe and that Boeing had become â€œa terrible place to work.â€

Bofferding denied that union members characterized Boeingâ€™s planes as unsafe.
Deliveries have slipped by more than 15 airplanes since the strike began.

SPEEA leaders have said more than 17,000 engineers and technical workers were on strike, mostly in the Puget Sound area. Recent Boeing estimates put that number at 15,000. SPEEA represents 22,352 workers, of whom roughly two-thirds are dues-paying union members.

The collective losses of strikers have been pegged at more than $125 million in wages, based on a company estimate of $3.4 million a day. Boeingâ€™s stock, selling at $41 a share when the strike began, reached a 52-week low Monday and closed Thursday at $35.625.

Deliveries have slipped by more than 15 airplanes and work on some government contracts also has suffered.