Cog in the machine...

You can find the detailed result over on the speea.org website, but the short version is that (1) the membership rejected Boeing’s second Best And Final Offer by only slightly less than we did their first BAFO and (2) by a margin of just about 3-to-1, the members authorized our Negotiation Team to call a strike when we think it an appropriate time.

Now, what I was really hoping for on the ratification vote was an increase in rejection percentage. I mean, since the last BAFO, Boeing’s announced that they’re sharing our profits and good fortune with the non-represented employees ("EIP could pay 15 days! How would you spend it?!") and stockholders (buy back a billion worth of stock, pumping the price, and giving a 17% raise in dividends) and even other unions (recent contract with the ex-MacDAC IAM folks in St Louis, with big raises, smaller med premiums, and an EIP-like productivity plan). Certainly, these facts would convince some more of my co-workers that Boeing could afford to not cut our wage and benefit packages as much as they seem to desire.

And it probably did. Unfortunately, those numbers were most likely offset by the folks who’ve changed their minds and decided, rightly or wrongly, that they need a contract, and NOW, dammit! So, as I said, the percentage of members rejecting this offer was pretty much that of the last. And not my fondest desired outcome.

The "strike authorization" vote, however, exceeded my greatest expectation. While there will be some mention of the five-percent difference between the 70% rejection - 75% strike vote, I wonder if the media will make note of the fact that the really significant number is, in fact, 20%: those accepting the contract who still voted to authorize support of a strike to improve the contract offer.


-- Bill, who’d estimate the percentages among the "non-paying unit member" population ain’t all that much different...

(From the bottom of Page 30 of this year’s Boeing Proxy Statement...)

---

RELATED-PARTY TRANSACTIONS

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In 2003, a subsidiary of the Company, Boeing Management Company("BMC"), entered into a license agreement providing Bugeye Technology, Inc. ("BTI") rights to use the Company’s patents and technology related to certain advanced video display technologies (the "Bugeye technologies") in exchange for aggregate five-year minimum license fees and annual royalty payments of $4,450,000 based on sales made by BTI. In the same transaction, BMC also assigned the Bugeye trademark to BTI in exchange for 102, 365 shares of BTI Series A preferred dividend stock at $0.411 per share.

BTI was formed through the Company Chairman’s Innovation Initiative ("CII") program. Douglas A. Swain, who serves as the President of BTI is the son of David O. Swain, the Company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Integrated Defense Systems.

David O. Swain recused himself from any involvement in the transaction and any dealings with BTI so long as he is an employee of the Company. The Company believes that the terms of this transaction were consistent with market conditions.

-- Bill, who’d bet David O. Swain’s friends didn’t recuse themselves...

Answer: I’ll worry about selling sometime after I’m convinced there’s a buyer for a house with an attic-full of angry, buzzing hornets.


Question: "What are the ramifications if the Wichita facility is sold while we don’t have a contract? While we’re out on strike?"


-- Bill, who’d suggest that the Company will draw out the "Wichita sale" threat at least until after the IAM’s contract negotiations in the summer of 2005...

I didn’t speak from a script or notes or anything, so the following, much like my speech at the Annual Boeing Shareholders’ Meeting, is my best (flawed) recollection of what I thought I said at our "Reject the offer" meeting yesterday...

This contract offer was wrong when y’all rightfully rejected it two months ago. And it’s more "wrong" now.

It’s more wrong because, since then, I sat not more than ten feet from Harry Stonecipher, as he told me that BCA was in better shape than it’s ever been. It’s more wrong now because we’ve earned Boeing THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS more than they expected in the first three months of this year alone; all we’re asking for is just a small fraction of that over the life of our three-year contract. It’s more wrong now because the Company is giving stockholders a 17% dividend raise. It’s more wrong because they’re spending a billion dollars to buy back our stock. It’s more wrong because of the better offer they gave to IAM employees in ex-MacDAC St. Louis. So I recommend rejection of this contract offer.

As to the Strike Authorization vote...

I was standing in the lobby a short while ago, talking to countless friends and coworkers, some of whom I’d not seen in years. So I know, for a FACT, that there are Computing employees here who, ON THEIR OWN, could shut down Wichita. And Planning employees, who could stop production; folks working in Military who could cancel out Boeing’s quarterly productivity completion payments.

I’ve heard said that the Company thinks we can’t hurt them. I disagree; I think the Company thinks that WE think we can’t hurt them. But I believe we can and shouldn’t be afraid to let them know that WE know.

Ya see, it appears the Company’s position is "yeah, we can afford it. But if you want any of the profit you’ve earned you’re going to have to take it." And that’s what a Strike Authorization will do: you all distract them while I pick their pockets.

To that end, please vote FOR Strike Authorization and help us get the contract we deserve. Thank you...

-- Bill, who’s still amazed by the turnout...

We’re back in the SPEEA office at about 3:15 after our meeting yesterday, unpacking all our crap and staying out of Election Teller Larry Thompson’s way, as he goes about dealing with the ballot boxes from Century II. Shortly thereafter, one of our Area Reps comes charging in and just reams us out for not being at Century II for the vote. With great, justifiable moral outrage, he states that he was just there, with several other angry members, and the Negotiations Team were nowhere to be found, even though we said we’d be there until 4:00. He stated he wanted a [expletive] ballot, so he could vote before he quit the [expletive] union.

Perhaps it was our look of complete, utter dumfounded astonishment at his rant that shocks him and calms him down.

I mean, the Negotiation Team is responsible for all messages sent out under our name and while we’re more than willing to admit mistakes in our communication -- the Employee "Incident" Plan, for example -- there’s just no way the Negotiations Team published that alleged schedule. So I call up our two Meeting Announcement e-mails, from Friday and today, and read, aloud, that we only specified a start time, not a conclusion. I tell him that, while I don’t doubt he’d received somekind of e-mail listing a schedule, it wasn’t one we’d sent out and, if he was so kind, would he send a copy to our wichita.negotiations" @ddress, so we can investigate the communication breakdown and fix it if it was our fault.

Now, I imagine he then picked up a ballot from BJ or Larry and voted before he left the office, but I really couldn’t say that with any authority, because I immediately went searching for the cause of his confusion. Unfortunately, I can find nothing; even googling up Molly McMillin’s story in this morning’s Eagle finds it to mention only our 1:00 start time.

Well, the rest of the Team was working on today’s mass membership mailing, apologizing for the apparent miscommunication and explaining what went on today, thanking y’all for your amazing support. So, I probably should’ve stuck around to help weave the story, but I figure that if anyone needs to go to Century II and intercept others who may be showing up even later than the 2:30 Crowd it should probably be someone who can explain as much as possible, about the contract, the negotiations, the meeting… the whole stinkin’ history. And who has an ego big enough to, not having a satisfactory answer to their scheduling complaints, take the verbal abuse without getting angry. Well, as Charlie was really busy [grin] I take it upon myself to leave the office, hop in the little red Mustang, and trot my butt back to the Concert Hall. I get there a few minutes later, finding out the large parking lot to the south of Century II is thirty cents an hour cheaper than the small one to its east. But I digress…

I feed the meter a couple of dimes and head across the street and up the stairs to where over a thousand of us had met less than an hour earlier. Rushing in, my Chuck’s squeaking on the granite floor, I race between both entrances to the auditorium, gladly finding no one. I then continue pacing until, eventually, two coworkers show up, fifteen minutes apart, wondering where the vote was taking place. I explain the communication mixup, cause yet unknown, and tell them that they’ll still have the opportunity to vote: just go to the SPEEA office in the Lower Level of Parklane, Oliver and Lincoln, from Tuesday through Friday, during normal business hours, which are 8:30 to 5:00.

A lot like Century II, which also closes at 5:00, when one of the Administrators locked the doors and told me, with a grin, that _I_ could stay until 6:00, but no one else gets in. Needless to say, I left shortly thereafter, returning to the SPEEA office. I get there past closing time, but Staff is still working their side of Strike Planning so I log on to "wichita.negotiations" to find that the angry Area Rep has forwarded on the message giving our alleged schedule for our Century II meeting today. Imagine my laughter when it turns out that it’s not from SPEEA… it’s from Jeff Clark and the Company’s negotiating team!!

-- Bill, who couldn’t make this stuff up if he tried…

Needless to say, I’m on distribution for everything sent to our Negotiation Team's "wichita.negotiations@speea.org" e-ddress and I can categorize our mail as:

• Suggestions for negotiations positions that, if not already previously identified and being worked, have been submitted too late to have an impact this late in the game.
  
• Letters of support or condemnation that come from the same bunch of writers every time we send a communique (Betty, thanks for your continued, unquestioning support…)
  
• Letters from first-timers, who say what they have to say and leave it at that

I recently received one of the last from a Decert focal -- NOT my friend Brian [grin] -- that seemed to sum up at least one perspective, so I thought I’d give my ‘put here:

I want to make sure you are aware of where our Tulsa and McAlester teammates are with their contract negotiations because this is where I see all of you leading us. After almost a year without a contract, the agreement that has been reached is basically the BAFO offered last May. Based on the highlights, these folks probably would be thrilled with the SPEEA-WTPU BAFO that you say is an insult and recommended rejection.

How is "second class citizenship" not an insult? And how could we possibly recommend acceptance when we believe Boeing has more than enough spare cash – like the THREE HUNDRED MILLION extra dollars they found in 1st Qtr profits, alone – to be able to afford the fraction we ask for the duration of our entire three-year contract?

One of the perspectives you seem to be neglecting is that, for the bargaining units you mention, their offer represents an INCREASE in their existing benefits, all the while the Company offers us in the WTPU nothing but cuts. This is merely a repetition of the Total Compensation fiasco that got us the union in the first place: Harry raising the benefits of ex-MacDAC workers, burdening those of us in "Heritage Boeing" with cuts to make up the difference.

I personally thought the BAFO was very fair and my advisory ballot vote reflected that. I think you need to put the emotions aside and look at the where you stand. In my opinion, this bargaining unit has very little leverage to demand anything more from the company. The only leverage I see you have is to call a strike which will result in a low percentage walk out that will have a short-term, limited effect.

As long as I can get the right folks in that "low percentage walkout" to walk, the effect will not be "short term" nor "limited."

Boeing is a very powerful, large and intricate structure. But, as we learned on 9/11, even the most powerful "large and intricate structure" in the history of mankind -- the United States of America -- has stress points therein so fragile that the entire system can come close to economic collapse, caused by nothing more than a handful of small, razor-sharp, box cutters.

While I am in no way condoning or approving violence against person or property, my metaphoric point is that there are any number of places within this Company where inattention, alone, would cause significant problems to production, customer service and future profitability. And, trust me, the effects would be neither "short term" nor "limited."

This is a VERY divided bargaining unit and for all the emails you have asked to be sent to management supporting your position, management also has received a lot of email supporting the company’s position.

I have just one question… are you freakin’ insane?!

The only hope most of you "old timer" Computing folks have of retaining a decent job for the rest of your worklife in Harry’s version of Boeing is through the protections of a contract you’ve chosen to fight. Where’s the logical code in that?

I think you all need to be happy with winning the battle and getting to keep your union but be man and woman enough to accept you have lost the war.

"Battle?" "War?!"

Heck, man… I’m more than happy to stop fighting, completely, if local management would just get over their slighted egos and give us an contract offer equitable to our coworkers…

-- Bill, who’ll stop fighting nanoseconds after our so-called "leaders" choose to do so…

Well, it seems that Boeing has, once again, chosen to delay negotiations: we were supposed to go back to mediation Wednesday morning, but now I hear that the Company can't be ready any earlier than the afternoon or, most likely, Thursday morning.

Now, as I'm ever the optimist, I hope this delay indicates that we've some true leaders in local management, who are willing to argue the ethics of our cause. I'd suggest you write to all of yours, from your first-level to Mr Turner, expressing the same hope...


-- Bill, who needs more information from management justifying the offer, because their rationale thus far smells like "second class citizen" bull$#!%...

Boeing's "2004 Annual Meeting of Shareholders" was held in Chicago on May 3 and a dozen or two SPEEA folks (mostly from Wichita) attended. We got there early and started "walking the line" outside the hotel where the meeting was taking place, being described by at least one reporter as the best dressed picketers he'd ever seen.

After about an hour of picketing, most of us paired off -- my "buddy" was NW VP Dave Landress -- and filed into the hotel to attend the meeting. Along the way guys in suits with little, tiny Boeing Security badges in their lapels entertained us with their impersonations of Senor Wences, watching us walk by, then talking to their wrists.

We checked in, got my notebook searched -- Security searched all "packages" at the entrance to the auditorium -- entered, sat down and waited for the meeting to start.

The Board eventually files in, Chairman Lew, CEO Harry and Corporate Secretary James Johnson taking the stage while the rest of the Board sits in the front row, their backs to the audience.

The meeting starts off with introductions of the Board and the other Execs present, each rising and facing the crowd, in spotlight. Mr. Platt then calls retiring Board member and MIT Professor Emeritus Dr. Paul Gray to rise, giving a short speech praising him for his service. Then we're right to the business of the day.

The first proposal has to do with electing four directors and SPEEA Staff Genius Stan Sorscher rises and chastises the Board for obstructing the inclusion of a director that the unions tried to get on the ballot; Stan's point was pretty much that the definition of "Consensual Candidate" was the implication that there was consensus beforehand. Lew dismissed the question, repeating some legal loophole the company used earlier.

The process thereafter was that the author of a proposal was given three minutes to sell the proposal and then other shareholders present were allowed one minute each to speak for or against the motion.

I really didn't pay enough attention to the first four motions to have specific recollection of speeches given by other SPEEA stockholders. I know that it seemed every other shareholder speaking mentioned the Wichita sale or the WTPU negotiations. Unfortunately, I was too busy running my speech over and over in my head, awaiting my turn at the mike, to do justice to anyone save my buddy Dave, who thankfully gave me a copy of his comments supporting the "Ethics" provisions of Shareholder Proposal #4, so I could repeat them with some authority. Suffice it to say, it was one of the highlights of the meeting, as he proceeded to challenge " that Mr. Stonecipher personally verify that his comments at the quarterly earnings teleconference are indeed accurate and that the current WTPU offer is not less than what Boeing would have provided if the group had decertified."

Then it was time to discuss Shareholder Proposal #5 on Human Rights, and I snapped to attention, waiting to leap to an open microphone but not before the proposal's author stepped forward. After a couple of heartbeats, the Jesuit priest Stan pointed out to me earlier rises and steps to the microphone. "Oh please, oh please, oh please... don't get anywhere near what I plan on saying," I pray. And he doesn't; he goes all around my topic, building my case for me, after which I get my turn at the microphone.

I'm Bill Hartig, I'm an employee shareholder and I've been one for twenty three years. I rise to speak for the proposal on Human Rights.

In the Directors' recommendation to reject the proposal the Board states you "are committed to... showing respect for employees and their rights of association and assembly wherever we operate in the world.

While I have little doubt that's true of the Board, I can state with authority that the Management of our company doesn't share that commitment. This is evidenced in Wichita, where employees are being punished for no other reason than for exercising their rights and voting for union representation just a few weeks back.

I believe this to be continuing failed Human Resource strategies that, in 2000, resulted in the largest strike by Engineering employees since Moses left Egypt.

To remain a vital, profitable enterprise, we need to partner with our employees and their unions if we hope to achieve the increases in worker productivity and efficiencies we need to stay in business; continuing these confrontational approaches to union relations is doomed to fail, be it in Wichita, Washington state, or the world at large.

To that end, I recommend a YES vote on Shareholder Proposal 5. Thank you.

It got a bit of applause, but the highlight for me was that the "Moses left Egypt" line got a laugh, from the audience and both Lew and Harry...


-- Bill, who really liked the part at the end, too, when Harry told the priest to shut up and sit down...

I hear rumors that some coworkers are planning to have a float in Boeing's RiverFest Mardi Gras parade on Thursday. I'm sorry I'm going to be locked up in our monthly Midwest Council meeting and will have to miss the Cajun food and mischievous frivolity.

Boeing videotaped the entire shareholders meeting. Why don't you see if your boss can get a copy, to show at your crew/staff meetings? Break it up in segments, as necessary, but I think y'all might enjoy it...

(I've been away from work for a few days, what with a 9x80 NonStandard RestDay and a weekend and the Shareholders Meeting in Chicago and a "no sleep" bus trip and an overnight, 50th birthday visit to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at St. Francis Med Ctr, so I really don't recall the specifics of my current work calendar but, last I remember, the IDS Council Reps and local SPEEA officers were to have our periodic, scheduled meeting with Tom Stringer tomorrow morning. I'd really like to attend, but our negotiations "cooling off" period has ended and we're supposed to meet with the mediator, starting at 9:00 or so. Now, I'm gonna try as hard as I can to be at the Stringer meeting but if more important activities intrude I'd like one of my fellow invitees to discuss the following:)

At our meeting a few months back, the topic of a dress code came up. One of the CRs made mention of a "dress code" e-mail sent out by one of Mr Stringer's managers -- Suzanne Moore, to be exact -- to her subordinates, in which she makes the belittling accusation that she thought her employees earned enough to dress better than they do. Mr Stringer responded that he was aware of the e-mail and that the manager would be "talked to."

It now appears that Ms Moore did not take the Boss' verbal reprimand to heart and has now proceeded to humiliate an individual employee, by name, in an e-mail to her workgroup.

And, DO NOT use [named employee] as your fashion consultant because he is being used as the DO NOT poster boy in all conversations I've hear from upper management. Saturday morning casual is NOT business casual and Tom Stringer and his staff are fed up with the unprofessional dress people have been coming in wearing.

I just wonder how much of this was Mr Stringer's belief and how much was rogue management's, out of control. And, of the latter, just what is he willing to do about reigning in control of anything other than some engineer's fashion sense...

The photographer behind me, to the left, is a Boeing employee sent out to take "mug shots" of each of us. This picture was taken just after I asked him for copies...

"Senators voted 52-47 to bar changes in overtime rules that would shrink the number workers eligible for overtime and 99-0 for another provision that guarantees overtime for workers in 55 professions, including computer programmers, teachers and journalists..."

I don't know how they voted on the first provision, but feel free to thank Sens. Brownback and Roberts for their support on the second...