Boeing's Revised SPEEA Offer Adds Immediate 10% Raise as Union Negotiators Recommend Acceptance

Boeing has presented the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) with a revised final contract offer that includes an immediate 10% guaranteed wage increase, and the union's own Negotiation Team is now recommending members accept it, according to SPEEA. The reversal comes less than a month after members in both of the union's bargaining units rejected an earlier Boeing package on Aug. 21, as reported by The Spokesman-Review.

What the revised offer contains

Under the new four-year proposal, all Professional and Technical unit-represented workers would receive a 10% guaranteed wage increase (GWI) effective Oct. 16, followed by an additional 4% guaranteed increase during the annual compensation review in March 2027, per SPEEA. For 2028, 2029 and 2030, the offer establishes 6% annual wage pools, each containing a 4% guaranteed increase for all covered employees. Boeing has said all money in those wage pools must be spent on SPEEA members, according to both SPEEA and the Lynnwood Times.

Boeing also agreed to spend additional funds, beyond the amounts identified in the contract offer, to address wage compression and low Compa-Ratios, SPEEA said. On the non-economic side, the package carries revised work-from-home and virtual-work language, overtime limits for Professional unit members, a new process for communicating Boeing's future workforce needs to help members with career planning, and a return to the current three-bucket retention rating system. Enhanced health care and retirement provisions from Boeing's first offer would be carried forward, according to both SPEEA and the Lynnwood Times.

How it compares with the rejected August package

The offer members turned down on Aug. 21 had been presented July 30 and, at the time, was endorsed by the Negotiation Team, according to the Lynnwood Times. That package offered a 3% general wage increase upon ratification, retroactive to Feb. 20, 2026, plus an amount equal to 40% of each member's 2026 incentive bonus and 40 restricted stock units valued at more than $9,000. Subsequent salary adjustment funds were structured around wage pools reported as starting at 6% or 7% in 2027 and then 5% or 5.5% in later years, with a guaranteed minimum tied to inflation but capped at 3%.

That inflation cap was central to the rejection. Several SPEEA members who voted no told Reuters, as relayed by The Spokesman-Review, that capping inflation-based raises at 3% would nearly guarantee their salaries fall behind actual inflation; the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in July that the Consumer Price Index rose 4.5% over the prior year in the Seattle area, where most SPEEA members work. The earlier package had also included a 40% increase in the target payout for the annual incentive plan, three extra paid-leave days, tighter limits on mandatory overtime and no increase in health care costs, per the Lynnwood Times. Boeing projected that offer would raise average base salaries for professional-unit employees from about $152,000 to $197,000 over four years, and for technical-unit employees from about $119,000 to $154,000, while union leaders described the wage pools as the largest since 1983 and projected compounded growth of 29.4%, or 31.9% including promotions and out-of-sequence adjustments, according to the Lynnwood Times.

Notably, in August the Negotiation Team had endorsed those terms, but neither of SPEEA's Bargaining Unit Councils backed the offer, and the union said afterward it planned to survey members on what it would take to approve a four-year contract, per The Spokesman-Review. This time, the Negotiation Team is again recommending acceptance, and it credits recent member activism — including marches and rallies at Boeing sites across the Pacific Northwest — for pushing the company toward a stronger package, according to SPEEA and KIRO 7.

Timeline and voting structure

Details of the revised offer were presented to the Bargaining Unit Councils of the Prof and Tech units at the regularly scheduled Northwest Council meeting on Thursday, Sept. 17, before being shared with the general membership, according to SPEEA. As of that announcement, no ratification vote date had been set, per KIRO 7. Reported unit sizes vary by outlet: the Lynnwood Times puts the Professional unit at 12,696 engineers and scientists and the Technical unit at 3,959 analytical-support employees, and describes SPEEA, IFPTE Local 2001, as representing more than 16,000 Boeing employees; KIRO 7 cites nearly 13,000 engineers in the Professional unit and more than 4,000 analysts, designers, specialists and technicians in the Technical unit, and puts total Boeing representation at roughly 20,000. Most members are in Washington state, with smaller groups in Oregon, California and Utah, per the Lynnwood Times. The two units negotiate simultaneously but hold separate contracts and vote separately, according to the Lynnwood Times and The Spokesman-Review.

Members already authorized a strike in the Aug. 21 balloting — 87.82% among professionals and 89.71% among technical workers, with turnout above 92% in both units — so no separate strike vote accompanies this offer, according to the Lynnwood Times. The current contracts expire Oct. 6, and a strike could begin as early as Oct. 7 if members reject the package, the Lynnwood Times reported. Under SPEEA's governing documents, the Bargaining Unit Councils — 59 council members for the Prof unit, 17 for the Tech unit and 16 representing both — issue recommendations to members and hold the power to call a strike authorization vote, per SPEEA.

What each side is saying

"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," said Ben Nimmergut, Boeing vice president and functional chief engineer for Production Engineering, as quoted by the Lynnwood Times. "We're optimistic this will allow all of us to focus on the important work ahead." SPEEA's Negotiation Team said the revised package "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," while cautioning that "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."

What's at stake

The talks, which began July 1, are the first full contract negotiations between Boeing and SPEEA in 14 years, with members having approved extensions of the 2013 agreements in 2016 and 2020, per the Lynnwood Times. Reuters reported that a work stoppage by SPEEA members would further delay Boeing's certification campaigns for the 737 MAX 10 and 777-9, both of which are several years behind schedule, as relayed by The Spokesman-Review. Leeham News noted that reaching terms quickly serves Boeing's interest because the company's financial turnaround hinges on an uninterrupted production ramp-up, making a work stoppage "an unfavorable outcome as the company seeks stability and a sustained period of debt reduction." The precedent is recent: in 2024, Boeing commercial airplane production in the Seattle area ground to a halt when roughly 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers struck for seven weeks, according to The Spokesman-Review.

Bottom line

Boeing's revised final offer front-loads pay with a 10% guaranteed increase effective Oct. 16 and adds guaranteed minimums inside each later wage pool, replacing the inflation-capped structure that members cited in rejecting the July 30 package, according to SPEEA and the Lynnwood Times. Interpretation: because the strike authorization from August remains in place and the contracts expire Oct. 6, the ratification vote — for which no date had been announced as of SPEEA's Sept. 17 update — is the remaining decision point on whether Boeing's Puget Sound engineering workforce stays on the job into October. That reading follows from the reported timeline and vote status above, not from any company or union forecast.