WICHITA, Kan. – The bargaining team for SPEEA’s Wichita Technical & Professional Unit started talks today toward a new collective bargaining agreement with Boeing.
The WTPU represents more than 1,500 aerospace professionals working in non-engineering roles at Boeing-Wichita. Their current contract expires Jan. 31, 2026.
“This is a remarkable moment,” said Rich Plunkett, the spokesman for the negotiating team. “Twenty years ago, Boeing walked away from Wichita, as it pursued a goal of eliminating union workforces in order to give more cash to Wall Street.”
Members of the Wichita Technical and Professional Unit (WTPU) Negotiation Team are shown on the left, across from Boeing’s team. They started Main Table negotiations Dec. 9, to negotiate a new contract for more than 1,500 aerospace professionals.
“Twenty years later, our union is still here, and we’re happy to welcome Boeing back to the Air Capital.
“Like Boeing today, our union’s goal is to ensure Wichita remains a global center for aerospace excellence, with this facility at its heart. We want Boeing airplanes to be the global gold standard of excellence.
“Doing this means attracting and retaining the most-talented people in the aerospace industry. Top talent deserves top pay, and our goal in these negotiations is to ensure that the workers represented by our WTPU have the best possible pay, benefits and working conditions.
“A successful reunification will be dependent upon the people of Boeing-Wichita. The first step in that process starts with us working together with management to achieve a contract we all can be proud of.”
SPEEA also represents some 1,000 aerospace engineers in Wichita, who are in a separate bargaining unit. They ratified their own most-recent contract in 2024.