Boeing and SPEEA Reach Revised Four-Year Tentative Deal With 10% Raise Set for Oct. 16 If Approved

Boeing and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) reached a tentative four-year contract agreement on Friday covering roughly 17,000 members of the union's professional and technical units, according to CNBC. If ratified, the deal would deliver a 10% wage increase effective Oct. 16, replacing a first offer that members overwhelmingly rejected in an Aug. 21 vote.

What the revised offer includes

According to SPEEA's own summary of the negotiations, the package pairs a 10% guaranteed wage increase (GWI) effective Oct. 16 with a 4% GWI during the annual compensation review in March 2027, followed by 6% annual wage pools in 2028, 2029 and 2030, each of which includes a 4% guaranteed increase for all members. Beyond base pay, SPEEA said the offer contains revised language on work-from-home policies and overtime limits for professional unit members, a new process for communicating Boeing's future workforce needs to help members plan their careers, and a move back to the union's current three-bucket retention rating system. SPEEA also said Boeing will address wage compression concerns with funds in addition to those already identified in the contract offers, and that gains from the first Boeing offer carry forward into this one.

Boeing's Ben Nimmergut, vice president and functional chief engineer for production engineering, said in a statement reported by CNBC: "Our final contract offer addresses the top priorities identified by our employees and SPEEA's bargaining teams, including an immediate wage increase and larger wage pools with guarantees."

How it compares with the rejected August offer

The offer members turned down in August carried 3% general wage increases, a figure several SPEEA members told Reuters, as cited by CNBC, would nearly guarantee their salaries fall behind inflation. By our calculation, the new 10% first-year raise is 7 percentage points higher than the rejected offer's 3% (10 minus 3), a relative increase of roughly 233% ((10-3)/3 x 100). That comparison is a straightforward reading of the two disclosed percentages and is not a projection of real purchasing power, which depends on future inflation.

Context for that concern: the Consumer Price Index rose 4.5% over the past year for the Seattle area, where most SPEEA members work, according to data the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in July and that CNBC cited in its coverage. SPEEA's negotiating team framed the revised deal in similarly qualified terms, saying it "isn't everything we'd asked for, but it represents a real step forward toward improving our pay and work lives and rebuilding the relationship between Boeing leadership and our union's members." The union separately credited member activism for the improved terms, saying the offer "delivers higher general wage increases for everyone, revised language on topics like working from home and career development, as well as targeted raises for SPEEA members with low Compa-Ratios."

Timeline and strike deadline

SPEEA said details of the offer will be presented to the Bargaining Unit Councils of the professional and technical units at the union's regularly scheduled Northwest Council meeting on Thursday, Sept. 17, and then shared with the general membership. Neither SPEEA's summary nor CNBC's report specified a formal ratification vote date or the approval threshold required for members to accept the deal.

The current contract expires Oct. 6, and CNBC reported that SPEEA members can go on strike if a new deal is not finalized by that date. That deadline frames the negotiating window: with the tentative agreement reached and SPEEA saying its team is recommending acceptance, the path to avoiding a walkout runs through the membership process outlined above, though neither CNBC nor SPEEA detailed the mechanics of that vote.

Why the outcome matters for Boeing's programs

CNBC reported that SPEEA members are critical to Boeing's efforts to certify the 737 MAX 10 and 777-9 jets, both of which are years behind schedule. Reading that link as interpretation rather than reported fact, a prolonged work stoppage among the engineering and technical workforce would bear directly on those certification timelines — though neither CNBC nor SPEEA quantified what a strike would halt, detailed incremental labor costs to Boeing, or included company commentary on margin or cash-flow impact from the new wage package.

The negotiating history adds weight to the moment: CNBC noted that Boeing has not negotiated an entirely new contract with SPEEA's Northwest members since 2012, with members instead approving contract extensions in 2016 and 2020. That makes this round the first full renegotiation in more than a decade, following a first offer members rejected outright in August.

Bottom Line

Boeing and SPEEA have reached a tentative four-year deal that raises the initial guaranteed wage increase to 10% from the 3% in the offer members rejected in August, while adding revised work-from-home and overtime language, a new workforce-planning process, and funds to address wage compression in addition to those identified in the contract offers. SPEEA said its negotiating team is recommending acceptance, but the offer still needs to clear the union's council presentation on Sept. 17 and subsequent membership consideration before the Oct. 6 contract expiration, after which CNBC reported members could strike. Whether the improved terms are enough to secure ratification, and what that means for Boeing's already delayed 737 MAX 10 and 777-9 certification work, will depend on a vote process that neither CNBC nor SPEEA has detailed in full.