By Scott Hamilton

Ray Goforth, executive director of SPEEA, Boeing’s engineer and technicians union. Credit: SPEEA.

Feb. 10, 2026, © Leeham News—Seattle: When Kelly Ortberg became CEO of The Boeing Co. in August 2024, he said that one of his first tasks was to reset the testy labor relations with the unions.

The results so far have been mixed. Ortberg’s immediate labor contract challenge was with the powerful IAM 751 union. The contract for its 32,000 workers expired 34 days after Ortberg assumed office, and negotiations were underway. Union members went on a 53-day strike before the finally ailing Boeing agreed to most of the demands.

Contract negotiations with a branch of the Teamsters union were concluded successfully without a strike. However, a different district of the IAM, 837 at the St. Louis defense plant, walked out for more than 100 days before a contract was accepted.

A new contract with the newly acquired Spirit AeroSystems plant in Wichita (KS), represented by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), was agreed without a strike. SPEEA praised the contract as achieving its goals.

Next up is the contract with Boeing’s engineers and technicians, also represented by SPEEA. This contract expires this fall. The union’s negotiating teams will be appointed this month. Procedural meetings with Boeing will begin afterward before proposals are exchanged and negotiations begin.

SPEEA has been at odds with Boeing before and after Ortberg’s appointment as CEO. Ray Goforth, executive director of the union, said in an interview with LNA last week that he’s seen improvements in its relationship with Boeing under Ortberg. But on the day of the interview, SPEEA accused Boeing of violating the current contract by reassigning up to 300 engineering jobs from the Seattle area to the 787 production facility in Charleston (SC).

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Shifting jobs to Charleston

Kelly Ortberg, CEO of The Boeing Co. Credit: Boeing.

Boeing’s decision to shift the 787-related engineering jobs to Charleston came as a surprise to the SPEEA representatives.

“As part of our collective bargaining agreements, we have a thing called the Joint Workforce Committee,” Goforth told LNA. “The entire purpose is for Boeing to give us projections for the next six months, here’s where we think we’re going to be staffing-wise on these programs. The whole purpose is for them to give us these guidelines so that we can be prepared and can prepare our members.

“We had our monthly workforce meeting on last Thursday [Jan. 29]. And they told us, everything looks steady state. You shouldn’t expect any changes. Then the very next morning, they called our members who work on 787 and worked together and informed them that all their jobs were going to Charleston. That’s clearly a miss. We have this committee that’s set up for the sole purpose of having these discussions,” Goforth said.

“That committee also agrees to keep some information confidential to the extent that there might be some competitive advantage or something if the information gets out. So, did Boeing deliberately just waste our time by giving us false information? Or, did they just screw up?” Goforth recounts. “You don’t do something as consequential as this without lots of deep analysis about the impacts on the company, good and bad. So, it was quite disappointing. We have this workforce meeting on one day. They tell us not to expect anything. The next morning, our members are calling us saying, we just had this meeting. What the hell is going on?”

Apology and awaiting answers

Goforth said Boeing’s representatives were apologetic. They gave SPEEA a “hand-waving” explanation that this came as a surprise to them and they’re still trying to figure out the answers to all our questions about who’s affected, and on what timescale they are affected.

Goforth said that there are other examples in which Boeing is taking a path that causes concerns to the union. Perhaps the most concerning is the charge that management continues to pressure Boeing employees who serve as Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) representatives. Paid by Boeing, these ODAs report to the FAA and theoretically are supposed to be independent of the company and pressure from managers. Ther day before our interview, Ortberg said a complaint was filed by some ODAs with the union of retaliation and pressure from management.

“Right now, as we sit here, we have ODA unit members who are telling us that they are being retaliated against. I read a summary of one yesterday,” Goforth said. “I don’t know the veracity of that, but that’s why you have some kind of a process to investigate.”

That’s where a safety initiative called ASAP, for Aviation Safety Action Program. ASPA originated with the airlines and Boeing’s test pilots adopted it years ago. The IAM 751 adopted it with Boeing’s agreement two years ago. SPEEA proposed it in 2024. Boeing’s labor relations department, representing the company in negotiations (instead of Boeing’s safety unit)—opposes a SPEEA request that the three member committee review all reports for determining whether the complaints are valid. Under the SPEEA proposal, the committee consists of Boeing, SPEEA and the FAA. Boeing insists on vetting complaints before presenting them to the committee. SPEEA believes this defeats the committee’s purpose. Boeing and SPEEA have been at an impasse for nearly two years.

On the other hand

Despite these and other hiccups, Goforth expressed optimism about attitude and procedural changes under Ortberg. The CEO didn’t meet with SPEEA officials until February, six months after he joined the company and three months after the IAM strike ended with adoption of a new contract.

Ortberg invited the SPEEA executive board to the meeting. “We’re waiting at the elevator bank to go up. In Walks Ortberg. He recognized all the executive board members and greeted them by name while we were all waiting for the elevator to come. After making that very good introduction to people, he personally escorted us and brought people water and was very, very gracious. Then we had a long discussion about our concerns,” Goforth recalled.

“I think he took us seriously and made some commitments that he would task his people on solving some of our concerns. It wasn’t as smooth as maybe I would have hoped. But they started marching down the list of outstanding concerns,” or “irritants” as Goforth called them, that he hopes will be resolved before contract negotiations begin in a few months.

Some irritants have been successfully resolved. Some haven’t been and some evaluation remains in progress. But Goforth noted key changes in attitudes from Boeing.

“Boeing traditionally takes hard lines, whether they’re right or wrong. They take the same line, and they force you to go through the process. Now, on a number of issues, when we’ve been able to kind of make our case, they’ve said, you know what, you’re right. We’re just going to fix it,” Goforth said. On some issues that Boeing rejected, an explanation was forthcoming. Goforth said SPEEA’s representatives may have been disappointed, but at least Boeing offered a description of why the complaint was rejected.

“That’s the kind of relationship that we should have.”

Room for optimism

“I feel pretty positive,” Goforth said. “What I’ve told different people from labor relations is that we never know which Boeing company we’re dealing with. That’s not a surprise to their suppliers. We never know whether it’s the Boeing company that just wants to destroy us.

“A Boeing company that is indifferent to us is far preferable to one that actively wants to destroy us. And one that’s willing to work with us is far preferable to one that’s indifferent to us. Ortberg seems to have tasked his people with resolving concerns when they make sense,” Goforth said.

How this evolves into the full-blown contract negotiations remains to be seen.