[Jeff Higgins]

Some insight into Boeing's "negotiation" process, as provided by Ray Goforth in a letter to a member. Ray is the chief contact negotiations spokesman for SPEEA, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace. This is the union representing engineers at Boeing.

Rich,

I'll answer your last paragraph first. Yes, SPEEA is going to be a lot clearer on what we're seeking on your behalf. We deliver our proposal to Boeing on September 10th. At that time, we'll share details with the membership about what we're seeking in that proposal.

As to the IAM, the issues are rather complex. At the 25,000 foot level, the issue is that at a time when The Boeing Company is enjoying record profits, has a pension plan that it admits is overfunded by $5 billion, and orders that stretch well into the next decade, there's absolutely no reason why Boeing should have proposed any takeaways. These negotiations should have been about sharing the success of The Boeing Company with the workers who made it successful (in a manner that's sustainable in the long term). Instead, the proposals to the IAM (and the proposals SPEEA has received so far in our subcommittee work) are riddled with takeaways. Some are trivial, some are significant....but there shouldn't be any at all. Even proposing takeaways was an absurdly aggressive posture in the context of these negotiations (as silly as a union proposing fat pay increases at a time when a company is experiencing financial problems). You don't ask employees to give money back when the corporate coffers are already bulging.

Specifically, on wages the IAM want 13% over the life of the contract. Boeing refuses to offer more than 11%. Moreover, the IAM want the wages allocated in a way as to bring-up the wages of their newer workers. Boeing keeps talking about the "average rate of pay" for a machinist being in the mid 50k range but the IAM has over 4000 members who actually make less than $30k. The IAM wanted to bring these wages up. Boeing wants to keep them down because when the (higher paid ) babyboomer machinists retire in the next decade, the average wage for a machinist will decline greatly towards that $30k number. For the machinists, it's about helping the lowest paid in their membership. For Boeing, it's about riding the demographic wave in their workforce to permanently depress IAM wages.

In healthcare, Boeing has proposed a number of little takeaways that are perceived as insulting because they're not needed (the company is doing fabulously financially). Some are significant (out of pocket maximum going up 50% from $4k per person to $6k per person). After running their individual family medical situations through these changes, many machinists figured out that they'd actually lose more money with this contract proposal than they'd gain from the proposed wage increase.

On outsourcing, in 2002 The Boeing Company forced the machinists to accept the outsourcing of thousands of their jobs (IAM voted to reject contract but couldn't raise the 2/3 vote to call a strike). The IAM would like this work back and they also want to have some sort of a say in how much work will be outsourced for the next major programs).

That's a nice general overview....but it leaves off the final issue....and that's the insulting and arrogant manner in which the negotiations were conducted. Boeing conducted a campaign to bypass the union and deal directly with the employees. Boeing conducted secret polling of employees and constructed (from that data) a proposal that they calculated they'd be able to sell the membership through their campaign of captive audience meetings, radio/newspaper ads, emails etc. They then basically wasted the time of the IAM negotiating team by going through the motions of negotiations without actually negotiating. I can tell you that Boeing is doing the exact same thing to SPEEA. We've been meeting with them in subcommittees for months and they haven't agreed to a single thing of substance. I had a friendly manager tell me how she was part of the secret polling of SPEEA members. When I've explained how the SPEEA membership felt about this or that issue I've often caught members of the Boeing negotiating team smirking to each other (because they believe they know the "truth" from their secret polling)....but Boeing got it fabulously wrong and were stunned at the 80% rejection vote the IAM membership gave their offer. I predict that they're just as wrong in the offer they're trying to force down the throats of SPEEA members. It's a tragedy....and the IAM need some sort of emotional satisfaction to come back off strike. They need some sort of an assurance that Boeing won't engage in this disrespectful and illegal conduct again.

Boeing's approach in these negotiations should have been: "We have a lot of money; you have a lot of leverage; let's cut a deal that is sustainable over the long run."

Instead, their approach was "We know the employees better than the union does; we have to go through the motions of negotiations because the law compels us to; we can use slick marketing tactics to trick the employees into accepting a deal that actually takes more money away from them than they get."

It was a trainwreck. I warned Scott Carson and Doug Kight over and over again that they were going to provoke both the IAM and SPEEA to strike if they didn't change tactics so that we could solve problems in a collaborative way. Both took the position that I didn't know what I was talking about. We can see that I was prescient about the IAM and frankly, I think the odds of a SPEEA strike are quite high once the membership understands what they are trying to do to you.

Myself, the staff and your negotiating team are doing our best to try and change the course that we're on but so far Boeing has utterly rejected our overtures. It's the same train wreck, we're just a couple months behind the IAM in our schedule.

Feel free to forward this to anyone who has the same questions that you had.

Ray