SEATTLE -- The sound of honking horns was constant early Friday morning in front of The Boeing Co.'s military division, as cold but happy engineers and technical workers waved picket signs and talked about the agreement they'll be asked to vote on this weekend.
"I'm willing to say we won," said engineer Don Jones, walking the line outside the south Seattle plant. "I don't think it was a complete victory, but it wasn't bad."For Jones' union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, it appears not bad at all, with significant gains for an organization that had never mounted a lengthy labor action before.
More than 19,000 workers walked off the job on Feb. 9 to protest Boeing's contract proposals.
Those proposals did not include guaranteed bonuses and asked workers to start paying part of their medical insurance and other benefits. The tentative agreement reached this morning includes bonuses and drops demands for insurance premium co-payments.
At the gate leading up to the military division, a massive brown box of a building across from Boeing Field, picketers said the contract could have been better -- better pay raises were mentioned frequently -- but that they would likely vote for the agreement and go back to work.
"I think it'll get approved, but it's a compromise," said Dave Keil, who works on the company's Joint Strike Fighter project for the military. "It's basically a status quo contract, but it's not bad."
The strike was given heavy support by other white-collar unions and the AFL-CIO, which touted it as a landmark in union efforts among professional workers.
Many SPEEA members expressed surprise that they were able to maintain the strike as long as they did. SPEEA's only other strike was a mostly symbolic, one-day affair in 1992, and union leaders were embarrassed when members wound up approving an offer that had previously been rejected.
"Basically, we brought the company to its knees," said one striker who did not give his name. "We didn't feel it necessary to cut its head off, too."