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Vol.64/No.9             March 6, 2000 
 
 
SPEEA stands firm, Boeing worried  
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BY SCOTT BREEN  
SEATTLE--The strike by more than 18,000 engineers and technical workers against the Boeing Company is lasting longer and having a greater impact on the company than the bosses expected. Now Boeing is gambling that they can outlast what the press refers to as a "white-collar" strike.

The strikers, however, remain united and are resolved to win. This is the is the first sustained strike against Boeing by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA).

As Al NcMeel, a SPEEA member and an NC programmer at Boeing's Frederickson factory told the Militant, "Boeing's plans have backfired. They've made us stronger. We have more resolve now." SPEEA estimates that more than 90 percent of Boeing's engineers and technical workers are on strike, even though only 63 percent of SPEEA-covered workers are dues-paying members.

Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, did not deliver a single commercial airliner the first week of the strike. Aircraft parts are piling up without engineers and technicians to certify them. Testing, production problems, and process changes requiring engineering approval are backing up, as are customer service requests for technical assistance, according to press reports.

Stung by the breadth and initial impact of the strike, Boeing lashed out against it. Boeing chairman and chief executive officer Philip Condit and Boeing president Harold Stonecipher held a news conference February 15 and gave press and radio interviews attacking the engineers and technical workers. Boeing also ran two full-page ads in the major daily newspapers here touting its two previous contract offers as an "outstanding wage package" and benefits "hard to beat."

Strikers were angered at the company's arrogance. "It was an insult to our intelligence," Gene Matthews said while doing picket duty at Boeing's Renton plant gate. Matthews, a 737 liason engineer who's been at Boeing for 22 years, was responding to statements Condit and Stonecipher made that the strikers should read the proposals they had voted down. "The problem is," he said, "we did read the contract. That's why we voted it down."

In the press conference, Condit declared that Boeing will continue assembling jets without the striking technicians and engineers, and that "we can do it a long, long time."

SPEEA members rejected two previous contract offers by Boeing. The first one was defeated by a lopsided 98 percent in December. It contained major benefit takebacks, including charging SPEEA members a monthly 10 percent premium for medical coverage. Boeing removed the major benefit takeaways in its second contract offer, but it was still voted down by 51 percent of the engineers and by 61 percent of the technical workers.

The second contract was rejected by most workers because salary raises were inadequate. Boeing admits that its wages are substandard, and strikers are quick to point out the proposed raises were not guaranteed, but would be "merit-based" and decided by supervisors. In addition, some of the benefits in the second contract, such as life insurance, were less than in the current contract.

Boeing has pulled both offers off the table now. No new talks are scheduled, although a federal mediator has announced he will be returning to Seattle February 22.

The dispute is causing concern on Wall Street, as well. Boeing's stock has tumbled since the second contract was rejected, falling from $44.63 a share to $36.50 on February 18, a decline of 18 percent.  
 

'We surprised Boeing'

Strikers interviewed on the picket line are clearly proud of their stand, and reflect the changed psychology that this section of Boeing's work force has undergone in the last four years.

Since 1995, Boeing has shed its "family" image to openly embrace a race for profits. This has resulted in mass layoffs, speed up, multibillion dollar mergers, cuts in research and development, and concerns that quality and safety are being jeopardized to increase Boeing's profit rate.

This has created growing dissatisfaction among this heterogeneous work force, and produced a new militancy and willingness to act in concert. "We surprised Boeing; we surprised ourselves; we've surprised everybody!" with our unity and strike action, exclaimed Amy, a technician walking the picket line.

The strike is being closely followed by production workers at Boeing, members of the International Association of Machinists, who struck Boeing in 1995 for 69 days to fend off contract concessions.

Some individual IAM members join the picket lines after work, or bring coffee, food, firewood, or propane to the strikers. Some have begun to take collections from coworkers to donate to the strikers' relief fund, since SPEEA has no strike fund. Many are wearing "I support SPEEA" buttons or putting up signs on their tool boxes inside the factories. In some areas, "work to rule" campaigns are beginning.

This is putting increasing pressure on the officials of IAM District 751, which organizes the 30,000 Boeing production workers in the Puget Sound, to actively aid the struggle.

Leaving work on Friday, Jim Thoma, an assembly mechanic in Renton, said, "It's a war now." He planned to stop off at the picket line near his home in Everett and drop off some firewood. "I'm going to do everything I can to support them. And so should our union."

Scott Breen is a member of the International Association of Machinists Local 751 and works at Boeing.  
 
 
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