Boeing and SPEEA reach a tentative deal that would raise engineer pay 10%

Boeing put a second four-year offer in front of SPEEA, its engineering union, on Friday, with bargaining teams recommending a yes vote: the same posture that failed three weeks ago. The contracts still expire October 6. After that date, a strike becomes possible.

SPEEA is sending the package, covering about 17,000 Professional and Technical workers, to the same units that voted the last offer down on August 21: 7,238 to 4,027, or 64.25% against, in the Professional unit, and 2,795 to 1,094, or 71.87% against, in the Technical unit. Professional turnout was 95.6%. Both units authorized a strike, with 87.8% and 89.7% support. SPEEA's negotiation team had endorsed that package. The Professional unit's bargaining council did not reach a recommendation; the Technical council recommended rejection. Members voted no anyway.

SPEEA has not negotiated a new Northwest contract with Boeing since 2012; members approved extensions in 2016 and 2020. The last SPEEA strike was in 2000, for 40 days.

The benchmark is the 2024 settlement with IAM District 751 machinists. After a 53-day factory strike, machinists accepted a deal, with 59% support, that delivered a 38% general wage increase over four years (13%, 9%, 9% and 7%), compounding to 43.65% over the life of the agreement, plus a $12,000 ratification payment. SPEEA's contract does not set fixed pay rates the way a machinists agreement does. This offer's first-year guaranteed 10% is still short of the machinists' 13% opener, and Boeing's public summary did not list a ratification bonus. They are different workforces and different pay systems. They are also the two labor prints hanging over the same recovery.

Boeing said the final offer "addresses your top priorities." The union's negotiators said it "isn't everything we'd asked for, but it represents a real step forward toward improving our pay and work lives." SPEEA has not published a ratification date. Details go first to the Professional and Technical bargaining-unit councils at the union's Northwest Council meeting on Thursday, September 17, SPEEA said, before they go to the full membership.

What the new wage offer pays

Boeing's public summary, covering both units, leads with a 10% guaranteed wage increase following approval. Reuters reported that raise would take effect October 16 if the contract is approved. Boeing then guarantees another 4% in March 2027, and 6% wage pools in 2028, 2029 and 2030 with a guaranteed minimum increase of 4% in each of those years. All of the pool money, Boeing said, must be spent on SPEEA members.

A wage pool is a budget Boeing has to spend on SPEEA raises. It is not, by itself, a raise every member is guaranteed to receive in full. That distinction is why the August package failed. Reuters reported the rejected offer had 3% general wage increases; several members told Reuters those would nearly guarantee salaries fall behind inflation. After the no vote, an internal SPEEA survey put higher general wage increases at the top of the list.

The rejected package had been described as wage-pool increases totaling 29.4% over four years. Boeing did not publish a single total for the new offer, and the two structures do not add the same way. What changed is the floor: a 10% across-the-board increase first, then guaranteed minimums inside the later pools.

A union-side account put current median pay at $153,000 in the Professional unit and $116,000 in the Technical unit. A 10% increase at those medians is about $15,300 and $11,600. Boeing said the offer also includes language clarifying its intent on virtual work and that it would maintain the enhanced healthcare and retirement benefits from the initial package. Reuters reported changes to overtime limits for Professional unit members. Boeing's September 11 page did not republish pension multipliers, 401(k) match rates, or outsourcing terms, and said full details would follow SPEEA's next internal steps.

The jet work a walkout would stall

SPEEA represents about 13,000 engineers and scientists and roughly 4,000 technicians, analysts and planners. Reuters reported those members are critical to Boeing's efforts to certify the 737 MAX 10 and 777-9, both years behind schedule, and said in August that a SPEEA work stoppage would further delay those campaigns. In its second-quarter results, Boeing said certification flight testing was complete on the 737-10, the MAX 10 variant, and that it still expected certification of that variant in 2026 and first delivery in 2027. The 777-9 received FAA approval to begin a further round of certification flight testing; first delivery remains expected in 2027. The deal, if it holds, keeps those people at work. It does not change the schedule.

Boeing shares closed Friday at $210.45, up 2.8%, as of the 4 p.m. ET regular session. No cited source attributed that gain to the SPEEA agreement. A reader holding iShares' U.S. aerospace and defense fund AITA, graded A on etf.net's published method, carries Boeing at 9.4% of a $12.9 billion book; Invesco's aerospace and defense fund BPPA, graded B, holds 7.1%; State Street's industrial sector fund AXLI, graded A, the S&P 500 industrials sleeve, holds 3.0%. Friday did not reprice those books.

Boeing's next earnings report is October 28, after the contracts expire. Members still have to vote.