SPEEA elects critics of executive director

A surprise election result Wednesday shook up the executive board of Boeing's white-collar engineering and technical union.

A slate critical of longtime executive director Charles Bofferding won two of three seats in voting for the board of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA).

The dissidents remain a minority on the seven-member board, however.

Bofferding has headed SPEEA's staff organization since 1991 and has become the public face and voice of the union. He led a successful 40-day strike in 2000, and last December negotiated a lucrative new contract for Boeing engineers and technical staff.

But critics such as Dave Baine, elected secretary of the union board, accused the executive director of running the union in an autocratic style.

"He's taken it upon himself to do much more than he is constitutionally allowed," said Baine in an interview shortly after his election. "He's got the power structure turned upside down."

In a pre-election candidate statement, Baine said Bofferding "enjoys a prominent pulpit and allows no dissent."

"It's not that we can't be cordial" with Bofferding, Baine said Wednesday. "We want to see him exercise his authority, but not more than he really should."

Bofferding played down the internal wrangling and any suggestion that the vote was directed at him.

"I don't think I was on the ballot," he said Wednesday.

Another Bofferding critic, Bob Wilkerson, was elected treasurer. In his candidate statement, Wilkerson criticized the board's oversight of union spending, especially money spent on political activities.

However, the most vocal Bofferding critic and leader of the reform group, Michael Dunn, failed in his bid for the board presidency. Dunn received 47 percent of the vote against 53 percent for Cynthia Cole.

Cole, a board member who served on the union negotiating teams during contract talks in 2002 and last year, pledged during her election campaign to "continue the momentum SPEEA has achieved in the past five years."

Bofferding said the board supports him, and he doesn't plan to adjust his style.

"I have to do the best job possible for SPEEA, I don't expect that to change," he said. "If there are people who don't think that, that's disappointing."

"SPEEA is not an autocracy; it really is a democracy," Bofferding said. "I work with whomever gets elected."

The election result leaves two dissidents and one nonaligned person on the seven-member SPEEA board, which could stymie the reform effort.

"The new president unfortunately is part of the group that's been on the board for several years and has allowed this to happen," Baine said. "I don't know if there'll be a significant change in the near future."

Election turnout was poor. Out of an eligible membership of more than 18,000 members, less than 4,000 voted, and each winner prevailed by less than 300 votes.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com