Update, 10:30 PM PST:

It’s official: 79% of the engineers and 69% of the technicians voted for the contract.

Update, 9:00 PM PST:

Unofficial returns: it appears that both contracts passed. It may be another 30-60 minutes before the returns are official.

Update, 8:00 PM PST:

SPEEA is still counting the votes. There was a record vote of more than 14,000. Estimates are another 60-90 minutes for the tally to be completed.

Original Post:

SPEEA, the engineer’s union at Boeing, will tally votes today on a new contract.

Actually, there are two contracts–one for the technicians and one for the engineers.

Up to now, technicians have been pretty vocal that they don’t like the terms negotiated by the SPEEA leadership, responding with a vitriol that surprised the negotiating team, who thought they had a good contract deal. This raised fears that the technicians might reject the contract, while the engineers are expected to approve it.

Final results aren’t expected to be counted until late tonight (Seattle time), but we’re geared up to post results as soon as we have them this evening.

If, by chance, either contract is rejected and a strike is authorized, don’t expect a walk-out. SPEEA historically goes back to the bargaining table to renegotiate if a contract is rejected. SPEEA has only struck twice in 40-some years.