Boeing workers reject contract offer at crucial moment for company

Boeing’s engineering and technicians union voted Friday to reject the company’s contract offer and authorize its negotiating team to call for a strike.

Boeing, in response, said it was moving forward with a contingency plan meant to ensure it can keep up with aircraft deliveries and other commitments to customers if its professional workforce walks off the job.

The union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEEA, said it will seek to resume negotiations with Boeing but is prepared to call for a work stoppage after members overwhelmingly authorized a strike. If called, a strike would not begin until the current contract expires Oct. 6.

The results of the vote and discussions with members over the last few weeks show SPEEA’s rank-and-file members “deeply mistrust Boeing management,” the union’s negotiating team said in a statement Friday.