SPEEA-Boeing contract vote count underway-and we are there

It’s Tuesday evening, Feb. 19, and we are at SPEEA headquarters to watch the ballot counting on the contract vote offered by Boeing.

It’s 6:25pm and it’s too soon to spot a trend. However, as we watched the ballots separated from he envelopes were could see a lot of “Accepts” and a lot of “Rejects.” As can be expected, the Accepts do not approve of a strike authorization and those rejecting the contract OK a strike.

Final results aren’t expected until after 9pm. Stay tuned here for updates as well as on Twitter @leehamnews

6:45pm PST: Counting underway, tilt toward Accept at one table.

7:00pm PST: Can see several stations; it’s too close to call a trend.

7:15pm PST: As we scan the room at the counting tables we can see, it looks like this vote will be close. Caveat: we can only see perhaps 25% of the voting stations. Best we can see, it looks like the tilt is toward Accept. This is not at all like the IAM 751 vote in 2008, in which the Reject was obvious and clear early in the evening.

7:20pm PST: SPEEA reminds us there are two employee groups voting tonight, the Professional engineers and the Technical group. One group could Accept and one group could Reject. One could OK a strike, the the might not.

7:25pm PST: In response to Shuper, “Accept” or “Reject” refers to the contract itself. “Do” or “Do Not” Authorize a strike is the other vote. We’re not trying to identify the Do or Do Not because these are basically tracking Accept or Reject. There is no visual on ballots (as there was with the IAM): both questions are on the same ballot (they were separate at the IAM, so a visual card stacking was obvious). The votes are tallied by the old-fashioned five-count hash marks on a sheet of paper. That’s what we are spotting.

8:00pm PST: Kind of quiet. One Professional vote counter says his table is neck-and-neck. A Techie tells us his group tends to be more militant but he doesn’t have a feel for the vote.

8:15pm PST: A bit of a surprise: several vote counting stations appear to be done.

8:30pm PST: Results will be coming “soonish.”

9:00pm PST: SPEEA first told us 20-25 min, now saying 45-60 min.

Twitter: The Herald@EverettHerald

RT @chcktylr: For you engineers, that’s 79.17068889864% of membership. RT @sbhatt: 18,043 ballots cast in #speea vote on #boeing contract

9:15pm PST: While we are killing time here at SPEEA, there is speculation that the FAA may not approve the temporary fix of the 787 (no news there) and this means a full replacement of the battery design might take as long as 18-24 months. We don’t have enough data to give credence to this timeline but–if it were to be this long, the Airbus A350 might enter service before the 787 re-enters service. Think about that.

The results are here.

10 Comments on “SPEEA-Boeing contract vote count underway-and we are there

  1. perhaps you could make more clear the accept- reject for contract versus the ” do” or NO for strike authorization ??

    perhaps there is an approx visual count of ballots returned x ballots/box ??

  2. FWIW an earlier tweet indicated at least 16K ballots received – thats almost 70 percent !!

  3. trivia ?? LM2 for fy 2011 ending in March 2012 shows 21,807 members who can vote, which includes wichita

    So if the number of 18,043 is correct – and subtracting about 800 for wichita

    18043/21000 = closer to 86 percent or .85919047619 :p

    even closer would be abut 1900 wichita in April and 19,238 in puget sound count

    or say 20,000 in puget sound so 18,043/20,000 = .902 or 90 percent

    What is needed is the total ballots authorized/sent !!!

  4. ..We don’t have enough data to give credence to this timeline but–if it were to be this long, the Airbus A350 might enter service before the 787 re-enters service. Think about that.

    Riight – after all BA brass has made it clear – we dont need no (*****) engineers here nohow

    Our power points tell us so !!

  5. Puget Sound has 23,400 combined professional & technical union members.

    15,600 professional engineers and 7,800

    Thus need 50.0000001% since each is a separate bargaining unit.

    Profs – 7801 to pass
    Techs – 3901 to pass

    • And your numbers come from where ? Forget the press and SPEEA pr- the only numbers that count is the tellers report as to ballots authorized/sent and received. Your rounded numbers infer a press release .

  6. DoNS,
    Read the membership numbers! Mathematically speaking 7801 votes are need by professional bargaining unit to pas or reject a contract. Basic statement.

    • My membership numbers come from the March 31 DOL report called lm2 and or the treasurer report monthly to the council.

      And yours come from ??

  7. ” there is speculation that the FAA may not approve the temporary fix of the 787 (no news there) and this means a full replacement of the battery design might take as long as 18-24 months.”

    I don’t even want think about that..

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