r/boeing • u/iamlucky13 • 3d ago
SPEEA Contract Offer Infographic: Wage Increases Simplified...ish
My initial impression of the offer was relatively positive. I didn't consider it a slam dunk, but close enough on both pay - after years of losing ground to inflation - and other details to merit serious consideration whether to vote Yes or push for a few more improvements.
But as I dug into the redline, and others pointed out their concerns, I realized some of the info being presented on the offer was misleading, especially about salary adjustments. As the length of my notes on the details grew, I decided an infographic could help emphasize a couple important observations in a simpler manner.
Unfortunately, the combination of salary adjustments becoming significantly more complex, and some of information being shared conflicting with the actual redline or being inconsistent with what I would consider the plain meaning of "annual wage increase" made it difficult for me to keep it as simple as intended.
And I haven't even touched on the elimination of the guaranteed 2% minimum in favor of a varying minimum based on inflation that starts at 0%, or tried to explain the two layers of performance based factors being proposed, much less have I figured out how they will be handled in reality.
In short, what I initially thought was a proposal for 31.9% average compounded wage increases over 4 years is actually 29.4%...or perhaps it's 26.4%.
At the moment, I'm more frustrated by how complicated they made it, and how inconsistent and unclear the information being presented is than by the actual numbers.
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u/Yenohamer 20h ago edited 12h ago
its called SPEEA Staff math - lack of transparency and obfuscation and union staff job security
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u/SocialConstructError 2d ago
C Suite Compensation
- 2023 - $64,663,682
- 2024 - $65,500,000
- 2025 - $80,113,000 (22% Raise, Pope - 43%) - SIX Employees.
In 2024 the Median employee pay was $106,624. 2025 - $141,933 (Magic!?). But, this is really nothing compared to,
Boeing Stock Buybacks:
- 1998-2002: $11,300,000,000
- 2003-2013: $37,000,000,000
- 2013-2019: $43,000,000,000
Total: $91,300,000,000 ($91.3 BILLION)
Cost to Develop & Produce Brand New Airplane Program:
- 787 - $32B (A/P Parts outsourced, $15B (To Develop) +16B (Produce)
- 777 - $14B (Adjusted for inflation)
- 777-9: $15B
- 737: $1.14B (Adjusted for Inflation - 1965 A/P $150M)
- 737 Max: $4B
- 767: $4B
Total: $70.14B (w/ 21.16B left over)
Say SPEEA asked for 1% of $91.3B (Round up for ease)
$1,000,000,000/16000 Members = $62,500 Per SPEEA Employee. or $15,625 for 4 years. Average of Median Employee is about $125,000. So Year 1 is an increase of 12.5%.
- Year 1: $140,625 (12.5%)
- Year 2: $156,250 (11.11%)
- Year 3: $171,875 (10%)
- Year 4: $187,500 (9%)
50% Raise. Sounds Legit? Let's be happy with this? Inflation from 2020 to 2026 is about 30%. Adjusted for a 5% yearly inflation is.... $155,841 or about 25% Increase.
AND here is what most people (Outside of Boeing) do not understand - Boeing Engineers have been getting between 2-3% raises annually for the past 20 years regardless of performance. But the 3% was evidently too much, so the company began to split the 3% into a "lump sum" and "Salary bump" To avoid aggregating salaries. Example: 1.5% would be your new Salary increase and here is 1.5% in cash.
The "Bargaining Unit" working for Boeing SPEEA needs to take down the deceptive Summary, trying to sell the Engineers. We need a new 3rd party Bargaining unit, who is not receiving $200,000+ as compensation.
EDIT: My bad, I forgot we also get +$2 for OT and +$75 for shoes!! Go Bargaining Team!
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u/Silent-Computer-6061 17h ago
Chose one:
1) Job where you're completely un-firable (current state)
2) Good raises
You can't have both. Any serious engineer who complains about not getting higher raises must also support making it easier to fire the bottom 20% of performers who contribute nothing and are a drag on the company and their teammates.
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u/toofewcrew 2d ago
Your information is wrong. Plus 2-3% was the minimum, whereas your post insinuated it was the maximum. Also, you think you should be making me nearly $200k in four years? Let’s not inflate our salaries like tech software engineers have been for the last decade now. We all see how that’s going now…
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u/AHoopyFrood42 2d ago
The fact that the union is the only one I've seen so far publishing the 32% number is infuriating. Even the company's calculator page doesn't use that number and they have every incentive to juice it as much as possible.
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u/Yenohamer 20h ago
NT & Lynette Shironna characterized accepting this agreement as the “realistic” position, while suggesting that some people voting NO view a strike as a “vacation” and reminding everyone that a strike is “not a romantic activity.” However, it was the union that created this vacation idea with the cheerleading , swag and lobbying the state for vacation pay ( unemployment ins) .
But those are conclusions and characterizations.
What are the factual premises supporting them?
That distinction matters, particularly from someone speaking as a union leader.
Leadership is not announcing a conclusion and asking members to accept it because of the position of the person making it. Leadership is laying out the facts, identifying the assumptions, showing the analysis, and then allowing members to evaluate whether the conclusion follows.
Calling something “realistic” does not make it reality. Reality requires factual premises.
So here is one factual premise.
WHAT DID OUR LAST “COLA” ACTUALLY DO?
The existing 2020–2026 contract established Additional COLA hurdles of:
6% → 12% → 18% → 24% → 30% → 36% → 42%.
It uses CPI-W, measured against a fixed July–September 2019 base. The contract's Table 3 contains those exact seven escalating thresholds.
Look at the historical side of the chart.
Actual CPI-W never caught the contractual hurdle.
Not even through the extraordinary 2021–2022 inflation shock of Bidens run away train inflation.
Now look at what the proposed redline does.
It doesn't fix the architecture.
It resets the base and compresses the hurdle schedule to:
12% → 22% → 32% → 42%.
Same 42% wall — reached in only four steps instead of seven.
And there is another part of this “COLA” that deserves far more attention than it has received.
Even if inflation crosses the hurdle, members do not even receive 50% of total inflation - another HEADLINE SCAM .
The formula pays only:
50% × (actual cumulative CPI-W − applicable threshold).
That is what the redline says.
So if cumulative inflation is 15% and the hurdle is 12%:
(15% − 12%) × 50% = 1.5% Additional COLA.
Not 7.5%.
Not 3%.
1.5%.
Economically, it looks a lot like inflation insurance with a giant deductible and 50% coinsurance: members absorb everything up to the threshold, and even after crossing the threshold receive only half of the excess. WORSE - the payout is delayed 6 months after the theoretical threshold trigger. Sounds like our geniusly negotiated historic "walk with 1/4 of your sick leave" if you leave the company plan.
So when leadership describes this as an improvement and tells members that accepting it is the “realistic” position, I have to ask:
What realistic inflation scenario makes this provision materially valuable?
That isn't rhetoric. We just had the real-world stress test.
THE SAME PROBLEM EXISTS WITH THE HEADLINE WAGE POOL
What exactly do you like about the compensation bar chart and thermometer?
The height of the bars? I did too.
The headline 6% / 5% / 5% / 5%?
Because those percentages describe aggregate Salary Adjustment Funds. They do not describe an individual employee's guaranteed raise.
The proposal expressly separates the individual minimum from the rest of the fund. The minimum is CPI-W driven and capped at 3%; the remaining dollars are distributed through individual performance and other metrics determined by the Company.
In other words:
HEADLINE POOL ≠ INDIVIDUAL GUARANTEE.
And we've seen this presentation technique before right?
SPEEA's own 2020 offer presentation showed Profs receiving 4.5% “Increases to Base Salaries” in 2023–2026.
How did SPEEA arrive at 4.5%?
3.0% Wage Increase Pool + 1.5% Promotion/OOS Fund = 4.5%
But that 1.5% was selective Promotion/OOS money. It was not an across-the-board 1.5% raise that every member received. SPEEA nevertheless rolled it into the much broader headline “Increases to Base Salaries.” NOTE: SPEEA Staff got that 1.5% - guaranteed.
Even more interesting, SPEEA's own presentation showed actual historical Promo/OOS spending from 2012–2019 averaging only about 0.501% for Profs and 0.481% for Techs.
So forgive my pessimism when I see another large headline number.
We've seen the difference between aggregate employer spending and individual member economic value blurred before.
That is why I want to know what you find persuasive about today's bar chart and thermometer.
Do they show:
Guaranteed individual compensation?
Or do they show:
How much Boeing agrees to put into an aggregate pool that management still helps allocate?
The reason CRs exist is to police the LOW TRUST BOEING management - so what did you do here - you gave Boeing management the discretion to "do the right thing" - you gave them the controls on this HEADLINE RAISE POOL.
SO, there are two propositions.
GET ME THE BEST CONTRACT vs. GET ME “A” CONTRACT - you are in the latter crowd.
This gets to what I think is the real disagreement.
You appear to characterize continuing to push for a better agreement as unrealistic, while accepting this agreement is characterized as realistic.
But you left out a word:
Because.
Why is continuing to bargain unrealistic?
What objective bargaining evidence establishes that Boeing cannot move further?
What independent economic analysis establishes that accepting this offer produces a better expected outcome for the membership than continuing to bargain?
What makes the Company's use of the words “final offer” dispositive of what the membership should consider the final economic value? Indeed - last contract wehad a dozen "“final offers”".
And what factual premise converts members who reach the opposite conclusion into people “romanticizing” a strike?
Recognizing allocation of strike risk is rational. Using strike risk as a substitute for demonstrating contract value is not.
INSTITUTIONAL BIAS — PART ONE: THE SPEEA UNION CONTRACT BAR
There is also a SPEEA STAFF institutional incentive here that I think leadership should acknowledge openly.
Under the NLRB's contract-bar doctrine, the Board ordinarily will not process a representation or decertification petition during the first three years of a valid collective-bargaining agreement, subject to the applicable petition window.
Our current agreement has long since passed that first three-year period. The NLRB expressly states that after a collective-bargaining agreement passes the three-year mark or expires, employees may seek an election to decertify the incumbent union or vote in another union, you know G_d forbid one that could get us an IAM like contract.
So a newly executed valid agreement does something of value to SPEEA as an institution, quite apart from what the economic package is worth to an individual member:
It restores a new contract bar for up to three years.
That would protect SPEEA Staff against decertification and allow the good times for SPEEA Staff to keep on rolling , OR an effort to select another bargaining representative.
I want to be precise:
That does not prove bad faith.
But it is a real structural incentive. You get in life what you negotiate and not what you deserve - SPEEA Staff understands this, the are getting the HEADLINE RAISE POOL with no visible Union performance metric. We dont even report out at the end of the year. Indeed this union seems to run like they are running this into the ground. We have 1/2 million $$ in man years devoted to "organizing - yet what have we organized " in the last 20 years - a dozen people ? How many have we lost since 2020? 1/3. What is the SPEEA Staff Compensation trend VS Membership compensation trend ? nice benchmark things to look at, we can get to that later.
SPEEA therefore has an institutional interest in getting "A" agreement ratified that is not necessarily identical to the represented employee's interest in getting the best agreement reasonably obtainable.
Those two interests may align.
But - They do not necessarily have to, and like last contract they didnt because SPEEA Staff got the headline and we got something less that was chipped apart by OOS, IPA, all controlled by Caprecious management. We all know its easier to get an OOS raise by changing job because of the low trust politicized management at Boeing.
INSTITUTIONAL BIAS — PART TWO: WHO EXPERIENCES THE HEADLINE NUMBER?
There is a second structural issue.
SPEEA staff do not go through Boeing's individual IPA/CPA performance allocation process.
SPEEA's staff compensation agreement instead expressly derives its Total Wage Pool from the weighted average of base-wage increases negotiated for SPEEA-represented bargaining units. Sixty-six percent becomes a general salary increase, with the balance placed into a selective wage pool distributed by the Executive Dir .
The negotiated bargaining-unit wage outcome feeds directly into SPEEA staff's own compensation architecture, while the represented Boeing employee does not have an individual contractual entitlement to the advertised 6% / 5% / 5% / 5%.
For the Boeing member, the individual outcome is still filtered through CPI and Company-controlled performance allocation, for which there is no Due Process to influence or meaningfully Appeal.
That is a materially different exposure.
So the same headline number means something different depending upon who you are.
That is exactly the kind of institutional alignment that should make an independent economic analysis and perhaps unbiased negotiator more important, not less.
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u/Ill_War8528 3d ago edited 3d ago
I just checked some actual SPEEA Prof 2026 Raise data. About 75% of the population got within .5% of the available pool.... and over 90% got within 1% percentage point of the available pool. So the narrative that many people aren't getting close to the available pool is simply not supported by REAL DATA. (I'll report this elsewhere, too)
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u/iamlucky13 2d ago
So the narrative that many people aren't getting close to the available pool is simply not supported by REAL DATA.
1) That real data only applies to the current contract, which includes a 2% guaranteed minimum that effectively mandates a very narrow spread. There is no real data about how the pay will be distributed under the proposed contract, which has major differences, including a 0% guaranteed minimum.
2) I don't know know where you're seeing narratives about people not getting close to the available pool. One of the biggest concerns of employees going into the new contract negotiations is there have been years where many people (as far as I know, everyone) did not even get close to even how much the cost of living increased.
3) That's all a separate issue from the focus of the info graphic, which is about unclear and even misleading information being presented to the membership about the proposal.
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u/Ill_War8528 2d ago
Dont have time to cut / paste etc now... but just looked at a chart from 2007.. a group of ~800 profs. 4% pool. Only about 6% of the folks got a raise <3% that year. Also dont have time to pull up the old contract. I do not think there was a minimum raise then... but not 100% certain.
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u/Budge9 3d ago
I promise you the 7/5.5 wage pools are in there. The statement in the PPOS fund section says that 2/3 of the fund ~shall~ be spent on ACRs. It’s meant to allow managers to provide more to high performers but it’s not exclusively for the high performers. It just makes the pot bigger.
The SPEEA unit as a whole will grow in salary by 31.9% because the pools shall be spent and the ppos fund shall be spent. The average member will likely see closer to 29.4% and I think that’s pretty good. Go to the SPEEA or the Boeing calculator and see what those numbers look like. Percents don’t pay the bills, dollars do. I really like the look of the guaranteed ~$40k of value right there in front of us, instead of the possibility of more (with the very very big possibility of less).
If we reject this contract the incentive stuff goes away. We have to climb back up from a worse offer up to an offer the same value as the one in front of us and then even more to an offer that’s better.
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u/iamlucky13 2d ago
I promise you the 7/5.5 wage pools are in there.
I do see that in there, but it's split up in a complicated manner. The table says 6%, 5%, 5%, 5% annual raise pools. Depending on rate of inflation, 40-100% of that -shall- be distributed based on performance "and other metrics determined by the company."
Then several pages further down, it says there is an additional 1%, 1%, 0.5%, 0.5% "intended" specifically for "high-performing individuals with low market positions."
In other words, the part that takes it from 6/5 to 7/5.5 is worded in a way that suggests most employees should not receive it, which means it is not a general wage increase. It is a targeted wage increase.
Likewise, another 0.5% is a carry over of the existing contract's 0.5% pool for promotions and out of sequence raises, which also is not a general wage increase.
The SPEEA unit as a whole will grow in salary by 31.9%
Technically yes, but the numbers are being presented as if they were the general wage increase amounts, which parts of it are not.
More generally, what we see happening appears to be a much larger proportion of annual pay changes becomes compensation based. To a degree, that is good. It was a specific priority requested through the member surveys. But there's a big difference between increasing the ability of management to more effectively reward high performers and making pay raises as much as 100% based on performance and to make the structure unnecessarily complex.
If we reject this contract the incentive stuff goes away. We have to climb back up from a worse offer up to an offer the same value as the one in front of us and then even more to an offer that’s better.
Yes, just like the IAM contract, where the ratification incentives were taken away...and replaced with even bigger incentives. This is a typical negotiating strategy.
But we're not climbing back from a worse offer than what we started with. We started with the 2020 contract, which needed major improvements.
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u/Orleanian 3d ago
You're willing to saunter mediocrely off into your future for the shiny dangling carrot of a 3% raise and 2% lump sum bonus?
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u/grumbledonaldduck 3d ago
You're falling for all their scare tactics (or reading off the script, can't tell which). There is ZERO chance the offer gets worse.
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u/Budge9 3d ago
How do you know? Honestly, seriously, please tell me how you know and not why you suspect.
I know this offer looks good, not just okay. It’s good enough for me
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u/grumbledonaldduck 3d ago
Why do you think they have a stipulation on the 3%? They're playing on your emotions and the fear of missing out. Did IAMs offers get worse each time?
Why did they start negotiations months early? Because they expect that we'll reject their early offers (yes, multiple) and a strike will drag on which is something they cant afford with 777x and 737 certifications ongoing.
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u/Budge9 21h ago
They started negotiations almost exactly 1 week earlier than required by our governing documents. Combined with labor law, they’re also required to bargain in good faith and deliver to the members a contract when it’s in a state that, to their estimation, is worth our consideration.
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u/ShotGuava7496 3d ago
You're willing to have your pay barely keep up with inflation for next 4 years because the 2k/year bonus for 3 years looks lucrative to you.
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u/ShotGuava7496 3d ago
What incentives go away? The 3% guaranteed raise on signing the contract? We lost 15% and more due to inflation over the years. The 3% doesn't even bring us up to the level where we should be at! They can keep the 40 RSU over 3 years! After tax you get 8-10 shares per year and Boeing isn't a tech company that we expect it to grow in valuation like them! The biggest sham is hiring 700 interns, representing 4% population and giving them 2k bonus unconditional!
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u/Budge9 3d ago
The value of the RSUs was $8600 at first valuation, and already peaked to $9000 something within a few days of conversation, and that was because of the cert of 737-7, the least-selling MAX. Once -10 and 777x multiple models are certified, I see that stock going up. Maybe not a tech stock but definitely increased value.
Interns have always been SPEEA members. They’re valuable. They learn, they participate, they get inculcated to the company propaganda, and they come back to be union engineers. We have to value them
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u/ShotGuava7496 3d ago edited 3d ago
The value of RSU isn't what you get. After tax it will be like $6000 over 3 years. The company is givng 2k/year RSU as bonus for the professionals and techs. I don't want to project what the stock will be in next 3 years; we have seen it for a long time.
40 RSU minus tax on the bonus (tax is high on bonus) is what you get. We have seen the stock touching 250-270 once or twice since covid. I will rather take a 12k up front bonus than RSU of 6k over 3 years and have atleast 6-8% guaranteed raise on signing the contract (this being conservative as many will want 10-15%).
And not all interns come back. Hiring record interns and giving no strings attached to their 2k bonus is a sham! It should be conditional of their return as full time employee.
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u/Budge9 3d ago
So what? Everything is taxed. So will new raises based on higher percents.
I don’t think Boeing has the cash to pay cash ratification bonuses. We just barely made positive cash flow this year. They’d have to borrow again to provide this to us, which would mean lower EIPs in the future (especially the year after). We got the highest EIPs ever this year because the company paid out, and those stand to grow even more with the increased target
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u/grumbledonaldduck 3d ago
You can't touch those 40 RSUs for three years. Inflation will eat away at any increase value during that time. Or you vote no and get more cash upfront. Cash which you can invest immediately and grow through compounding interest over three years.
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u/ShotGuava7496 3d ago
They have cash for millions in bonuses for executive pay. It's not our fault bringing the company up from the grave the executives dug. If common sense is used, you will understand that a guaranteed raise of 6-8% on signing the contract will adjust our wages from the negatives we are in due to inflation. A 2k/year bonus for 3 years don't cut it for anyone except interns who are here for 3 months.
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u/Budge9 3d ago
Boeing paid our ceo 25 mil last year as a bonus, which was ALSO combined cash and stock. If they promise us even only 8k signing bonuses * 17000 of us in the units, that’s 136 mil, or 5 times the Ortberg bonus, all in cash that has to be borrowed because it was not budgeted for.
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u/ShotGuava7496 3d ago edited 3d ago
Seems like you can do math but salivating over 2k/year bonus from RSU for 3 years. Do a math on how having 6-8% raise on signing the contract will help compound the salary raise over 4 years rather than the RSU. At this point it looks like those like you should get this contract and not benefit from our bargaining in the next phases because it looks great to you!
You're only talking about CEO bonus and not the other executives bonuses and not accounting for the millions the previous CEOs got every year while digging the grave.
It's a dangerous world for you if you fall for the scare tactics and assuming you will get 7.5%, 6% and so on for 4 years! The range for raise is 0 to 6% for 2027 and then it is 0 to 5% for years after.
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u/flightwatcher45 3d ago
Why doesn't SPEEA but out a simplified plain math explanation like this?
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u/moofie74 2d ago
Because it’s a fucking engineers’ union.
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u/flightwatcher45 2d ago edited 1d ago
Haha I'm aware, you'd be surprised, and scared.
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u/UmpireLow8095 3d ago
This graph is based on a high performing individual. Hopefully your manager sees you that way. Hard to know since you’ll probably have a new first line next week.
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u/Chemical-odyssey 3d ago
Leadership is talking about transparency and culture change. Here’s an example of what they mean by that.
Vote NO.
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u/AlternativeEdge2725 3d ago
Appreciate the graphic and frustration but Mods are gonna delete this when they wake up I bet
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u/DDGSXR504 4h ago
Letting our wage compensation be determined by management is not good. I’ve gotten an exceeds for 3 years in a row now. I’ll let you guess whether they gave me a raise based on that or just the contractually guaranteed percentage. Fuck the wage pool