PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) — Boeing Co. will pay $47 million to
hundreds of current and former Southern California employees who are
owed back pay and benefits, a union announced Friday.
An
arbitrator ruled against the aerospace giant in January and laid down
guidelines for the payments and interest, but it took months to cull
through records and decide how much each worker was owed, said Bill
Dugovich, a spokesman for the Seattle-based Society of Professional
Engineering Employees in Aerospace.
A union grievance filed 13
years ago claimed Chicago-based Boeing violated contracts with engineers
and technical workers in Palmdale and at Edwards Air Force Base
northeast of Los Angeles.
The payments will be made in lump sums to 251 current and 233 former employees or their heirs.
The $47 million includes back pay, premium pay, interest, pension and 401(k) contributions along with
interest.
The
individual amounts range from a few dollars to around $400,000, with an
average of nearly $100,000 per employee, Dugovich said.
"Boeing
spent more than a decade and countless dollars trying to break its
contracts with these employees," Rich Plunkett, SPEEA’s director of
strategic development, said in a statement. "It’s disappointing it took
so long, but the employees prevailed."
Company labor spokesman Tim
Healy said, "Boeing was disappointed with the arbitration ruling but we
are working with SPEEA to fulfill the arbitrator’s make-whole ruling."
The deadline to distribute the payments is May 21. Healy said Boeing hopes to send them out in early May.

Union
officials have scheduled meetings around the country this month to
explain the award to recipients. Meetings already have been held in
Washington state. California meetings are scheduled next week in Long
Beach, Palmdale and at Edwards, with other meetings planned in St.
Louis, Philadelphia, South Carolina and Arizona, Dugovich said.
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