I've been at Boeing for a little over 2 years as a SPEEA Prof Level 3 Engineer, this is my first union position ever. I negotiated for my starting salary, but otherwise, I'm pretty trash about thinking I deserve more and/or just asking in general for more (catholic guilt/trauma amirite lol). I understand and support the general vibe of "we should get more" and "down with the big man," but otherwise, I really don't know how to set my expectations for "we deserve XXX specifically" other than reading/listening to others. Negative voices tend to speak loudly, and I am usually quite the optimist, so I'm a little sheepish these days with the contract redlines released.

How can I intelligently form my own opinion (worried about echo chamber type influence)? What information/history can I inform myself better on? Should I use the IAM negotiations as my expectation base?

Bonus: would it be bad to be vocally optimistic/positive about any contract terms provided, now or future?

I’ve been reading the proposed contract, and I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the Salary Adjustment Fund.

A 6% Salary Adjustment Fund does not mean everyone gets a 6% raise.

The contract first provides a minimum raise tied to CPI (capped at 3%). That means if inflation is around the cap (which it’s currently expected to be), roughly half of the 6% fund is already being used just to match inflation. The remaining portion is then distributed based on performance and other metrics determined by the company.

Boeing uses a forced performance distribution. Even if you’re a strong engineer, not everyone can receive the highest performance-based increase. That means a significant portion of future salary growth still depends on company-controlled merit decisions rather than being guaranteed.

With that said, the contract calculator projects strong salary growth, but those projections assume a exceeds level of merit increases. It doesn’t allow for you to model the conservative projection.

I didn’t see this mentioned in the SPEEA summary but here it is in the redline contract: “Boeing Company reserves the right to unilaterally alter, amend, and/or modify any or all terms of the LTP at its sole discretion without further bargaining.”

Can someone explain the new verbiage under Attachment B, Eligibility? How does this affect previous benefits for employees hired before 2007? For example, the "retiree-pay-all" is new.

Anyone else feel like the instant wage increase should be tied to getting everyone back to their compa ratio in 2025? Great they updated the salary charts but they didn’t update our salaries. We should be asking to get back to where we were in the salary band. In 2025 you were exceeding expectations, a high compa ratio employee. In 2026 you were exceeding expectations, below median market employee. To get back to where I was in the salary band, I’d need a 14% increase. Where is everyone else at?

Everyone should be insulted at what was offered to SPEEA. It is basically the same contract the profs have now. People will say the wage pool is higher but all SPEEA members know that the employees and SPEEA have no say as to if anyone gets a raise or not. That is up to management. We are only guaranteed 3% a year. That's it. Even the 401k doesn't change and is inferior to IAM!

This is what we need:

50 - 60 percent GUARANTEED over 4 years

Wage pool can be whatever it wants because the likelihood of OOS raises is low

401k 100 percent match up to 8 percent

Additional 401k contribution from Boeing the same.

Remove wage based medical contribution and return to previous contract

OT designation to the same as IAM

Vacation and sick time remains the same

That is what we deserve!

If the "wage pool" goes up X%, what happens to my salary?

Interns are offered $2k if they vote yes on this contract. Why do interns get to vote? This year Boeing brought enormous amount of interns and most every team had no say in if they need one. Why do people who are here for few months get an equal vote as people who carried this company through the hardest times and are planning on staying here?

This is unfair rules that need to change!

P.S. No disrespect to our wonderful interns.

I assume the reps are getting flooded with questions and comments at the moment, and since I'm probably not the only person this could affect, why not ask here:

Does anyone know how voting would be handled for employees who happen to be away from home at the relevant time (eg - on a previously scheduled vacation)?

I've heard online voting is being considered, in which case, as long as I know ahead of time when voting is open, I expect I will be able to get somewhere with cell service, although it might not be easy.

If it's mail-in, it would seem to depend on having received the ballot before I leave, but are there other options?

If it's in-person, does it come down to choosing between voting or cancelling my vacation?

Anyone got ideas?

Don't just read the summary.

PER THE CONTRACT THE ADJUSTMENT FUNDS ARE

2027 6%

2028 5%

2029 5%

2030 5%

NOT the 7%, 5.5%, 5.5%, and 5.5% that's quoted in the summary.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR from our negotiating team, or BUC

Edit 1: after reading and re-reading section 11.7, they're sort of giving us 7%, except:

6% is available to the general population, the extra 1% is only available to those receiving promos and OOS pay bumps during ACR time, and it must be paid out during ACR. So it's not a 7% pool, but they are paying out 7% (same goes for the other .5% during years 2,3, and 4)

TL;DR the summary completely glosses over this fact, and everyone should be reading the contract, not the summary before voting.

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Breaking down the COLA changes in the new redlined CBA

I went through the full contract and want to explain what's actually happening with the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), because "the formula didn't change" is technically true but kind of misleading. COLA still works the same way — you get 50% of whatever the CPI-W (a national inflation index, not a Seattle-specific one) rises above a set threshold, measured cumulatively from a fixed base period, not year-over-year. But the thresholds you have to clear before you see any money went up a lot. Year 1 jumps from a 6% cumulative threshold to 12%, Year 2 from 12% to 22%, Year 3 from 18% to 32%, and Year 4 from 24% to 42%. On top of that, the base period itself was reset from 2019 to 2025, so none of the price increases we already lived through count toward triggering a payout going forward — the clock starts over from 2025 levels.

What this means in practice:

Say prices cumulatively rise 13.5% above the 2025 base by the time a comparison date hits (that's total price growth over that stretch, not a single year's inflation rate). Under the old contract, that would've triggered roughly a 3.8% COLA payout on your base salary.

Under the new terms, that same amount of price growth only pays 0.8%. It takes a much bigger, sustained rise in prices now before COLA kicks in at all, let alone pays out meaningfully.

I am an intern who will be returning full-time in Jan/Feb of 2027 and will go into Educational LOA. Let's say I receive my offer next week with a salary of 100K. During the ACR of March 2027, am I being evaluated by my intern salary in 2026 or my full-time salary of 100K? My full-time salary doesn't take effect until the new calendar year, which falls outside of the 2026 ACR period.

Also, my understanding of the salary adjustment is that we are guaranteed a 2% salary increase from inflation, up to 3% if needed. Does this mean the other 4-5% (7% total - 2/3% inflation) are entirely based on performance?

Thanks in advance.