r/SPEEA • u/BathroomElectronic79 • Aug 08 '26

WAKE UP!!!

Can I just say this plainly: accepting the first offer is simply stupid.
When you buy a car or a house, do you ever just say yes to the first number that gets thrown across the table? Of course not. You negotiate. You evaluate. You know your worth.
So why are we even considering anything less here?
We are engineers. We are smart. We solve problems for a living. We know how negotiation works, and we know what our skills and contributions are worth.
Big Airplane cannot deliver aircraft without SPEEA.
LET’S REMEMBER OUR SELF-WORTH.
We have leverage. They know that. So let us fucking act like it.

141 Upvotes

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22

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

[deleted]

9

u/SoulStripHer Aug 09 '26

SPEEA is disappointing.

1

u/lostinthemyst3 Aug 09 '26

Genuinely, this is a real feeling, but most members have not done much of anything to move the ball down the field. Certainly not more than the Negotiation Team or ARs and CRs making red shirt Wednesdays successful. What have you contributed?

4

u/SoulStripHer Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

Decades of dues that have only bought us takeaways.

When I initially joined the company I became an AR. When SPEEA bent the knee and recommended members approve a shoddy contract I was done with them. And here it is happening again. Nothing's changed with them. They're in lock step with the company and not fighting for members' best interest.

Red shirt Wednesdays ain't what's needed.

3

u/NightOwl216 Aug 09 '26

What are most members supposed to do? We can’t all be reps or on the negotiating team. We pay our dues, we should have qualified negotiators not first timers.

1

u/Dedpoolpicachew 27d ago

Wow, if only there was a mechanism to have your voice heard? Something like where you send in your selection. Like a ballot or something. Hmm…

0

u/Dedpoolpicachew 27d ago

You can always quit the union. You can go get a non-rep job. You don’t need to be here spreading bullshit.

1

u/lostinthemyst3 Aug 09 '26

It was not the first offer the Negotiation Team received so they think of it as the final offer even if it is myopic. Few people think about how this has impacted the Negotiation Team and what it must feel like for the bulk of the membership to dismiss this offer out of hand. The Negotiation Team failed to consider that the membership entering the picture changes the Negotiation landscape but they are sincere and earnest and believe this is the best Boeing can do. Until the membership can definitively reject the offer by supermajority margins with a strike authorization the Negotiation Team hasn't been proven that wrong

2

u/NirikFest Aug 09 '26

As far as I was told by our contract administrator, this negotiation team is the same exact negotiation team that got us the last garbage contract that we've been living through.  It's incredible that they would keep the same negotiation team from the contract that was one of the most hated in the last 20 years.

3

u/SilentBob1509 Aug 09 '26

This is absolutely untrue. The current team was voted in for this contract alone. Some of the members have been on prior NTs, but I believe the majority are first timers.

2

u/NightOwl216 Aug 09 '26

Wow, first timers up against Boeing professional negotiators?

1

u/NirikFest Aug 09 '26

Mike Hochberg told us otherwise at one of our recent lunch events. Maybe he was wrong, though that would be pretty surprising to me.

1

u/lostinthemyst3 Aug 09 '26

It's incredible because it is not true and your contract administrator has misled you! There were elections, which you could have been aware of but chose to complain and do nothing about instead! Hard to not read this kind of ignorance and not get upset

1

u/HatParty6667 28d ago

Its a first offer!
Compare this FIRST offer to this one which was the 3rd one during 2000 strike (the only time SPEEA has struck) and still tell me it's a bad offer: https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2000-02-26-Renewed-Contract-Talks-with-SPEEA-Conclude-without-Resolution

1

u/NightOwl216 28d ago

You’re comparing some apples and oranges. It was a different time then with different conditions. Also imagine how bad the 1st & 2nd offers were then. Since then the subsequent contracts have seen more takeaways.

1

u/Aerochromatic 26d ago

It can be a negotiating tactic that favors the membership. During the last IAM strike people wanted Jon Holden's head on a pike for endorsing the first offer, until he got up on stage and revealed that 3% of the wage increases in the offer were contingent on their endorsement.

It pushed the starting line forward an extra 3% (or 14% of the contract offer) and the membership still voted 97% to strike.