Boeing freezes hiring while posting $100-an-hour strike-cover engineering jobs

Boeing managers have been told to hold off filling non-critical positions, and executives have been asked to postpone off-site retreats, while the company advertises contract engineering work at Boeing sites in Washington and California for upward of $100 an hour. Both things are strike preparation, and they are happening at the same company in the same month.

The cost-cutting began quietly after the two bargaining units of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace voted overwhelmingly in August to authorize a strike, according to The Air Current, which cited people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss internal decisions. Alongside the soft hiring freeze, Boeing is limiting non-essential travel. The contract job postings appeared on Indeed.

SPEEA's agreements expire Oct. 6. A strike, if the union's negotiating team calls one, cannot begin before that date. SPEEA represents about 17,000 workers at Boeing facilities in Washington and nearby states, roughly 13,000 engineers and scientists in the professional unit and about 4,000 analysts, technicians, planners and specialists in the technical unit.

What gives the hiring freeze its edge is where some of the contingency money came from. In an Aug. 21 message to members, Boeing withdrew benefits it had offered for early ratification: an immediate 3% guaranteed wage increase retroactive to February, and a 40% increase to potential annual incentive payouts. "With the disappointing vote results, we are now diverting those dollars to execute our plan and prepare for a potential strike," wrote Ben Nimmergut, a Boeing vice president and functional chief engineer for production engineering, in the message reported by The Air Current. Pay the engineers, or prepare to work without them. Boeing chose the second and said so in writing.

The rejection that triggered it was lopsided. Sixty-four percent of the professional unit voted no, and nearly 72% of the technical unit, The Seattle Times reported.

Boeing's second offer, presented to union negotiators on Sept. 11, would raise pay by 34% over four years, with a 14% guaranteed wage increase in the first six months after ratification, according to The Air Current. Leeham News, describing the same offer, reported a 10% guaranteed wage increase effective Oct. 16, 6% annual wage pools for 2028 through 2030 and revised work-from-home language; the two accounts differ on the size of the guaranteed increase. SPEEA's negotiating team said the offer does not contain "everything we asked for, but it represents a real step toward improving our pay and work lives and rebuilding the relationship between Boeing leadership and our union's members."

Members still have to vote.

The rejected first offer would have lifted the average base salary in the professional unit from $152,000 to $197,000 over four years, and in the technical unit from $119,000 to $154,000, according to Boeing figures cited by The Seattle Times. Members ranked a guaranteed wage increase as their top priority in a post-vote survey, followed by larger wage pools and raises matched to cost of living.

Boeing's own read of its labor market is the most quietly revealing fact in the dispute. At the bargaining table, SPEEA told the company that new hires were leaving because they could not afford homes on Boeing salaries and that some white-collar members now earn less than blue-collar colleagues in the Machinists union. "Fundamentally, though, Boeing did not believe that they have a retention or attrition problem," negotiating team member Ben Merrit told a union town hall, in remarks reported by The Seattle Times. "They see the job postings fill and few people leave." Weeks later, the company was posting contract engineering roles at three figures an hour to cover for the same workforce.

Harry Katz, a professor at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told The Seattle Times the SPEEA workforce is "so specialized, they're so essential, they're not replaceable."

SPEEA has questioned whether the replacements exist at all. Boeing "seems to be looking for 17,000 individuals who don't care if they undercut worker solidarity," union spokesman Bryan Corliss told Reuters, adding that bringing in thousands of contractors could set back the progress Boeing has made on the quality and safety problems that followed the January 2024 panel blowout. Boeing said in a statement that it is implementing contingency planning that "will leverage a wide range of qualified resources with a continued emphasis on safety and quality."

Chief executive Kelly Ortberg put the stakes plainly at a Morgan Stanley conference on Sept. 16. "We're working very hard to try to avoid any kind of a work stoppage," he said. "That's our key number one, two, three, four, five priority because that impact would be significant if we did have a strike. Essentially, the 777 certification program shuts down until we get the engineers back, and it will have a ripple effect even into our production." A walkout could also further delay certification of the 737 MAX 10, Reuters reported; both aircraft are years behind schedule and neither has an FAA type certificate.

These are SPEEA's first full negotiations with Boeing in nearly 14 years, and the union came to the table with more than 120 issues and a collaborative bargaining approach that members found confusing, Merrit told the town hall. The negotiating team also plans to revisit language limiting Boeing's ability to outsource union work to nonunion shops, and floated tying SPEEA headcount to a fixed share of Boeing's global workforce. "Boeing didn't have an appetite for that round one," negotiator Katheryn Durkee said. "We'll see if they have an appetite for that round two."

SPEEA has struck twice in its history: one day in the early 1990s and 40 days in the 2000s. Boeing's last two major contract fights both ended in walkouts, a seven-week strike by about 33,000 Machinists at commercial airplanes in 2024 and a 101-day strike by roughly 3,200 IAM members at the defense division in 2025.