Update on the Boeing Strike

files a great story on the Boeing engineer strike.

As an improbable engineers' strike moves into its second month with no end in sight Boeing Co. and its investors could face mounting financial costs.Boeing has said some 18,000 Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace workers lose $3.4 million in pay each day on the picket line. But now company costs from late jet deliveries and other bottlenecks may be accelerating.

The strike has already hit operations and production, affecting the delivery of aircraft during the first quarter of 2000, and deliveries in the second quarter "may be affected," Boeing said in its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission late on Wednesday. The strike delayed 15 of 42 commercial jet deliveries slated for February and Boeing has yet to deliver a plane in March. The strike has also slowed work on Boeing's entry in the Joint Strike Fighter competition that could be worth $350 billion in sales to the Pentagon and to foreign governments.

Members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees of Aerospace (SPEEA) went on strike about three weeks ago after management and the union failed to agree on a new contract because of differences over pay and benefits. SPEEA says it has stepped up its pressure on the company to come back to the bargaining table and fork over better pay and benefits than it offered in three previous contract proposals. SPEEA engineers, earning an average of $63,000 a year, and technical workers, averaging $45,000, are telling college graduates not to join Boeing and have asked the Federal Aviation Administration how Boeing can deliver any planes without them.

SPEEA would also accept back pay for striking workers in lieu of a bonus, which would save money by withholding it from the 4,000 to 6,000 workers who have crossed the picket line. Besides a one-day walkout during contract talks in January 1993, SPEEA had never struck before now. Many SPEEA members were insulted that Boeing last summer gave the 44,000-strong machinists union virtually everything it demanded, including a 10-percent signing bonus, but has taken a harder line with the white-collar union. Boeing has declared an impasse in contract talks, claiming that allowed it to impose its wage offer on SPEEA, which has contested the move with the National Labor Relations Board.

Conte said SPEEA workers have steadily, if slowly, been returning to work, with 26 percent on the job this week--about 5,720 of some 22,000 under the Seattle area bargaining unit. The union has said strike participation has held steady at about 19,000, with about 3,000 crossing the line.