Boeing Strikers Won Gains for Non-Union Staff, Too

by Rita Shaw

Boeing managers and office staff who are not unionized recently had a health and welfare program imposed on them by the company which required monthly partial payment for medical coverage. Following the strike victory by the engineers and technical workers at Boeing, with a contract that continues fully paid medical insurance, the company had to back off on what they had imposed on non-union workers. On March 24, the following notice was sent out to all Boeing employees.

BOEING ELIMINATES COST-SHARING OF MEDICAL PREMIUMS, BOOSTS PENSION BENEFIT FOR SALARIED, NONUNION WORKERS.

Senior Vice President Jim Dagnon will deliver a double dose of good news today for salaried nonunion employees. Effective immediately, the company is eliminating cost sharing of medical insurance premiums and increasing the standard pension benefit from $46 to $50 per month for each year of qualified service. “We want our salaried, nonunion employees to continue to have a premier package of benefits under our Total Compensation program,” Dagnon said. “These changes do just that.” Nonunion salaried employees currently pay 10 percent of the cost of medical premiums. Dagnon said employees could see the difference in their take-home pay as soon as their next paycheck. Employees of Boeing subsidiaries and low-cost centers will continue under their current plans. For more details, check Boeing News Now online later today.

The day the announcement came through, many of the managers and office staff went through work sites, thanking and hugging the SPEEA people who had been out on strike. I am told that there were so many doughnuts and other goodies sent in to the ex-strikers that they have a supply for weeks to come.

Word is that the office personnel will probably be signing up for a union shortly.

One of the stories going around Boeing now is that two days before the strikers went back to work, while there was discussion and voting on the offer, Dagnon (head of “human resources” or whatever new buzz word is used for the honcho in charge of labor relations) informed a meeting of the middle and upper-level managers that his strategy had been that if the SPEEA folks went out on strike, they wouldn’t last more than two weeks without great numbers going back to work due to economic pressures. That would break the spirit and strength of the strike, and then Boeing could impose terms on them that were worse than what had been rejected. Final act: end of the union!

What Boeing never understood and may still not, is that it was not just money. It really was respect, pride in work, common goals, loss of the “family” feeling at work. Boeing has not yet really said or done anything to try to heal this huge chasm. With Dagnon at the helm, they probably never will. Dagnon worked hard at the Burlington Northern Railroad to destroy the rail unions and ended up making some of them so “pissed” that they are now healthier organizations, unified by their opposition to Dagnon.

In general, things are going well for the former strikers at “the big B,” as Boeing is called locally. In a couple of months, there will be a vote held of all engineers and techs covered and gaining from the SPEEA strike, to decide whether fee payment shall be mandatory for all. I think it was history-making that during this strike, the membership in the union increased.

April 2, 2000