By Scott Hamilton
Aug. 21, 2026, © Leeham News: Engineers and technicians represented by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) soundly rejected contracts their negotiating teams unanimously recommended after talks that the teams and Boeing praised for collaboration, civility and outcome.
Engineers rejected the tentative agreement (TA) by a 64.3% vote. The technicians voted down the TA by 71.9%. Both groups approved a separate ballot authorizing a strike if contracts are not approved by Oct. 6, when the current contracts expire. The engineers’ strike authorization was approved by 87.9%; technicians voted 89.7% in favor of a strike.
The TAs were reached after less than a month of negotiations. Boeing labeled the TAs as its “Best and Final Offers” (BAFOs). Although TAs are often labeled BAFOs, it is rarely the case that a BAFO is presented with the first TA. Historically, at least a few contract offers are made and voted upon before the “real” BAFO is forthcoming. In the 2024 contract talks between Boeing and its touch-labor union, the IAM 751, a TA was reached that Boeing and the 751 leadership described as the best ever.
Union members defeated the contract with an 85% vote and authorized a strike with an 86% vote. These votes came the same day the 751 contract expired. Union members went on strike at midnight, Sept. 12, and stayed out for 53 days. Boeing made three more offers, with the fourth becoming its BAFO. Union members accepted the final offer.
With SPEEA’s union members rejecting these proposals, no strike is permitted because the current contracts are still in place. SPEEA leadership will take a few days to survey members before asking Boeing for new talks, perhaps as early as next week.
“Our Negotiation Team is prepared and willing to work with the company toward meaningful movement so that we can come to agreement on new contracts
before Oct. 6,” SPEEA said in a statement. “However, we also are prepared to call for a labor stoppage, based on the overwhelming support of our members
for the strike authorization vote.”
“It became clear that SPEEA members deeply mistrust Boeing management,” SPEEA said.
Both sides have now reacted to the overwhelming rejection of the contracts.
SPEEA’s leadership blamed the results on “mistrust [as a the] result of decades of bad management.”
“It’s important to acknowledge how we got here; this mistrust was built brick-by-brick over the past several contracts,” the SPEEA negotiation team members said in a statement.
“SPEEA-represented jobs eroded, quality and safety took a backseat to schedule, engineering and technical decisions were overruled or worse, ignored, and salaries failed to keep pace with both the market and inflation,” SPEEA said.
“Nearly 30 years after the Boeing merger with McDonnell Douglas – often pointed to as the inflection point where Boeing shifted away from emphasis on engineering and technical excellence in favor of enlarging shareholder returns – “we are all still collectively dealing with the consequences of prior management decisions,” negotiators said.
“The current executive leadership is saying and doing the right things, and the management team that met with us appeared sincere, solution-focused and genuine in their efforts to right the past errors of their predecessors,” SPEEA said. “Still, the membership has made clear that the current offer falls short, and without significant improvements to the last offer, they are prepared to strike.”
Boeing was no less blunt.
“We gave a strong contract offer to position our employees among the market leaders in pay and benefits in the Pacific Northwest. We’re disappointed our engineers and technical workforce voted no on our offer. As a result, we are now implementing our strike contingency plan and diverting the dollars we had wanted to invest in our SPEEA-represented team to prepare for a potential strike,” said Ben Nimmergut, Boeing vice president and functional chief engineer for Production Engineering. “We have no choice but to implement our contingency plan. We have a responsibility to the rest of our workforce and our customers to build on our progress over the last two years and maintain our momentum. No further talks with SPEEA are scheduled. The earliest a strike could occur is Oct. 7.”
SPEEA members – BA will get or use professional help- SPEEA should hire outside professional help. Well meaning members and staff will be steamrolled like previous..
While Boeing is infighting to secure high pay checks, short term benefits, Airbus flies their new flight lab, progresses NB development, rolls out the new composites 111t freighter.
And it even isn’t unfair somehow. The CEO / executives salaries are 3x less than Boeings.
https://lnkd.in/p/eGyYKCqu
Just because you mentioned Flightlab
https://x.com/ShannonAirport/status/2090769471136776457/video/1?s=46
“We have no choice …”
said Ben Nimmergut, Boeing vice president and functional chief engineer for Production Engineering.
Interesting thought process for an Engineer to utter out loud.
Facts Only
* Engineers rejected the tentative agreement by 64.3%.
* Technicians voted down the tentative agreement by 71.9%.
* A separate ballot authorized a strike if contracts were not approved by October 6.
* Engineers' strike authorization was approved by 87.9%.
* Technicians voted 89.7% in favor of a strike authorization.
* Negotiations for the tentative agreements concluded after less than a month.
* Boeing labeled the tentative agreements as its "Best and Final Offers" (BAFOs).
* Union members previously defeated a contract with an 85% vote and authorized a strike with an 86% vote in 2024.
* The earliest possible strike date mentioned by Boeing was October 7th.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative reveals a profound divergence between management's stated commitment to collaboration and the lived experience of the workforce, pointing toward a deep structural distrust rooted in historical organizational decisions. The pattern observed is one where formal agreements—even those hailed as successful collaborations—are invalidated by the membership, suggesting that process legitimacy is secondary to substantive outcomes. Boeing's response, immediately pivoting to strike contingency planning rather than further negotiation, signals a shift from problem-solving to risk management, which reinforces the historical narrative of mistrust articulated by SPEEA regarding past mismanagement and compensation failures. This echoes a pattern where institutional history shapes current negotiations, creating an environment where trust is viewed as contingent on rectifying prior systemic errors rather than accepting present proposals. The implication for agency is that procedural success is insufficient; true agreement requires acknowledging and remediating the historical context of workforce dissatisfaction.
Bridge Questions: If formal agreements are routinely rejected due to underlying mistrust, what mechanisms could be established to build trust *before* contract negotiations begin? How does the differential reaction between engineers and technicians reveal different internal organizational priorities within Boeing management regarding risk versus relationship building? What specific, measurable steps must be taken to shift the focus from historical grievance to actionable, future-oriented partnership?