Our bargaining team wrapped up the week by mapping out potential solutions to the list of non-economic problems identified by the joint Boeing and SPEEA subcommittees. We look forward to sharing those ideas with SPEEA next week before eventually turning our discussions to compensation and benefits.
Updates
We met with SPEEA’s full bargaining committees today to discuss the topics of performance management and job security. We’re now working to finalize the full list of problem statements identified over the course of this week and then move toward finding potential solutions.
We expect to begin passing formal proposals and counterproposals next week before moving on to economic discussions around pay and benefits.
Our conversations continue to be respectful, and we look forward to learning more about the issues most important to you.
Over the coming days, we’ll start answering some of the most frequently asked questions we’re hearing when it comes to negotiations.
Today, we’re addressing the topics being discussed at the bargaining table as well as the time frame to complete negotiations and make a contract offer.
Watch this short video for more.
There’s good progress to report today as the Boeing and SPEEA bargaining teams split up into two subcommittees. One group focused on work-life balance while the other focused on career development.
Both subcommittees jointly identified problem statements in each area and are now working on possible solutions. At this point, no specific proposals have been passed by Boeing or the union.
We know work-life balance can mean something different to each of you. As we focus on meeting our customer commitments, there’s no substitute for face-to-face collaboration on site. But we also want to make sure there’s some level of flexibility to help our team.
When it comes to career development, we’re committed to building a strong future by investing in you and your Boeing career. We already have a strong foundation and look forward to working with SPEEA in this area. Since 2020, Boeing has paid $91 million in tuition and flight incentive benefits for SPEEA-represented employees through our Learning Together Program, with more than 1,000 degrees earned. And 73% of SPEEA members have taken a course through the Ed Wells Partnership over the past three years.
We remain focused on getting to a common understanding with SPEEA in all the key areas.
During our conversations today with SPEEA’s bargaining teams, we discussed our mission to deliver engineering and technical excellence in all that we do. Our goal is to make our company the most sought-out place to build a career by providing the best environment, the best tools and the best resources.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be working with SPEEA to identify roadblocks and find solutions to ensure we’re able to meet that goal by attracting and retaining the best talent. We’ll be addressing a range of topics and initially focus on career development and work-life balance.
We look forward to listening, learning and identifying solutions as we continue to work toward a strong contract offer.
Today’s discussions with SPEEA continued to build on listening and understanding.
We had robust discussions around the alignment of company and employee values. We talked about our customer commitments at length, and how important it is for us to deliver on those promises.
We also shared a business update which included a discussion of several key focus areas:
Stabilize our business: We’re focused on enhancing safety and quality, stabilizing the BCA production system and our supply chain, and executing on our production rate increases.
Development program execution: We have to keep our customer commitments by certifying the 737-7, 737-10 and 777X. On the defense side, we’re focused on continuing to improve performance and reducing risk on our fixed-priced development programs.
Culture change: We’re committed to living our Values and Behaviors as we continue to work together to rebuild our company’s culture. While the most recent employee survey shows we’re making progress, there’s still more work to do.
Build our future: We’re investing in our people and making additional strategic investments in research and development.
By listening and working together, we can be successful in all these areas.
We had a productive first day of talks with SPEEA’s negotiations team. Both parties reaffirmed their commitment to interest-based bargaining with the goal of identifying priorities and issues, and then working together toward solutions.
SPEEA shared a deeper dive of the contract priorities they outlined a few weeks ago. Our team then provided an overview of how we benchmark against other local companies to ensure competitive pay, as well as how our market-leading 401(k) and healthcare plans keep us ahead of our aerospace and tech peers.
We’ll reconvene for a session tomorrow and then move to more in-depth discussions after the holiday weekend.
Contract Priorities
Contract negotiations between Boeing and SPEEA are officially underway. During our early conversations with SPEEA, we’ve already found several areas of common interest and look forward to learning more about what’s most important to you at the bargaining table.
We’re approaching this negotiation as another opportunity to improve our culture by showing the respect we have for you and the important work you do.
We’ve made good progress as a company over the last two years and it’s important we do everything we can to continue that momentum. Anything that jeopardizes our progress would hurt our customers and throw our recovery off course. That’s why we wanted to start earlier to reach an agreement and allow everyone to focus on the important work ahead. And the dollars we’d spend executing a contingency plan could instead be invested in all of you as we work toward a strong contract offer.
You’ve probably seen the contract priorities that SPEEA’s bargaining team released a few weeks ago. We wanted to provide our thoughts on those priorities and share our own goals that we look forward to exploring with SPEEA at the bargaining table.
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Frequently Asked Questions
During our early conversations with SPEEA, we’ve already found several areas of common interest and look forward to learning more about what’s most important to you at the bargaining table.
We’ve made good progress as a company over the last two years and it’s important we do everything we can to continue that momentum. Anything that jeopardizes our progress would hurt our customers and throw our recovery off course. That’s why we wanted to start earlier to reach an agreement and allow everyone to focus on the important work ahead. And the dollars we’d spend executing a contingency plan could instead be invested in all of you as we work toward a strong contract offer.
No. This will be a full negotiation where both sides sit down at the bargaining table and work toward a strong contract offer for employees.
Interest-based bargaining is a collaborative negotiations approach that emphasizes mutual respect and problem solving. Instead of focusing on rigid demands and viewing negotiations as a win-lose battle, the two parties identify priorities and issues and then jointly work toward a solution.
We would reconvene later in the year closer to the contract expiration date.
No. The current contract does not expire until Oct. 6.
We’ve developed a contingency plan to ensure business continuity in the event of a work stoppage. It’s the right thing to do for our customers. But if we can reach an earlier agreement, the dollars we’d spend executing a contingency plan could instead be invested in our team as we work toward a strong contract offer.
Engineers in Action
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Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this summary information. In the event of a conflict between this summary and the collective bargaining agreement and/or benefit plan documents, the official documents will govern. All content is for informational purposes only. Federal labor law prohibits Boeing from bargaining directly with employees. We will only negotiate with union officials.