Lessons from SPEEA organizing at Boeing:*

SPEAA wins at Wichita! But not before a major nasty anti-union campaign. Here are some excerpts:

Boeing has pulled out all stops in one of the biggest and most blatent anti-union drives ever at Boeing. Read the details: http://www.wichitaeagle.com/aviation/boeing0628.htm

And also take a look at http://www.fitermania.com/speeamsgbin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Organ izing+Oz&number=14&DaysPrune=2&SUBMIT=Go

The B&H Play Book (Wichita edition):

Here’s what you can expect in your upcoming effort. Boeing HR and our good friends, Baker & Hostetler, hereinafter referred to as B&H, will set up a company-sponsored bulletin board within the Puget Sound firewall. They will brief their own posters to spew forth the company line. It will be ugly, nasty and insulting. But it does help to understand their game plan.

I urge all eligible voters to study the following site: http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/contents.htm

"Individuals are great thinkers!" (whatever that means) .... "SPEEA members are all parrots." (i.e., not great thinkers) .... "AFL-CIO will come into your house while you sleep and (pick one or more): 1) put a horses head in your bed; 2) paint you red and turn you into a flaming communist; 3) personally introduce you to Jimmy Hoffa." ...."All pro-SPEEA types are worthless, lazy, shiftless, deadwood, …." (you get the idea) "Boeing - Love it leave it!", "Don’t let the door hit you in the…", "If you know a better place, go to it." (this is known as Jingoism) "The smart people are all changing their vote to NO!" (bandwagon, ya’ll get on board, y’hear?)

There are plenty of other examples. You’ll know them when you see them if you study up first. You’ll also see posters (the paper variety) insulting and defaming SPEEA and SPEEA employees. I personally find these to be very insulting, and from my own informal poll, have the opposite effect from that intended. They are mean in the spirit of the SPEEA.com site (not to be confused with SPEEA.org). Maybe they are Harry’s revenge.

SPEAA loses in Corinth: Lessons Learned from a first election. Boeing employees at Corinth, Texas voted down representation by SPEEA. Read this article about the management tactics that lead to this defeat.

* Thanks to Don Shuper for keeping us informed of Boeing situations