Contract Talks for 1,000 Spirit Engineers on Hold Until Oct. 28

Contract talks between SPEEA and executives at Spirit AeroSystems are on hold, due to uncertainty about the labor situation at Boeing and what our union describes as a “chasm” between it and Spirit management on key issues.

Negotiations on a contract for more than 1,000 union-represented engineers at Spirit will resume the week of Oct. 28, said leaders of SPEEA/IFPTE Local 2001.

Talks started on Sept. 17, and most of the first three weeks of negotiations were spent on topics like addressing the disconnect between employees and managers. The two sides discussed “documentation associated with career development for engineers and meaningful feedback on performance from both the employee and company perspectives.”

SPEEA and Spirit exchanged proposals on pay and other economic aspects of the contract during the week of Oct. 1. The union’s negotiating team was “disappointed by management’s valuation of the engineering workforce,” said Rich Plunkett, SPEEA’s director of strategic development.

“We didn’t expect to spend this much time defending portions of our current contract,” Plunkett said. “We are working hard to improve the contract, based on our members’ feedback.”

During the current break, Spirit managers have agreed to provide SPEEA with information it has requested, and to keep our union appraised of developments related to the ongoing strike by Machinists Union members at Boeing’s production facilities on the West Coast.

SPEEA is planning to survey its dues-paying members to fine-tune its proposals.

SPEEA – the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace – represents more than 2,600 engineers and technical workers at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita. The technical workers work under a separate bargaining agreement that expires in 2026.

The union also represents some 17,000 engineers, scientists, technical workers, and pilots at Boeing facilities in Washington, Oregon, California, and Utah. SPEEA is affiliated with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers as IFPTE Local 2001.