SEATTLE (AP) — The union representing most of Boeing Co.'s engineers and technical workers has named a new leader, six months after its board voted to fire the previous longtime executive director.
Ray Goforth, a union representative and strategic adviser in the Seattle local of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, replaces Charles Bofferding at the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, an affiliate of IFPTE.
Last fall, four board members who pushed to oust Bofferding lost their seats in a recall election. On Tuesday, SPEEA said its seven-member executive board voted unanimously to hire Goforth.
''It's a new day and a new start at SPEEA,'' said Cynthia Cole, the board president said in a statement.
Goforth, described by colleagues as a tough negotiator, takes over as SPEEA is gearing up to negotiate a new contract with Boeing. The current contract for the union's largest unit, the one covering more than 20,000 Seattle-area workers, expires in December.
Goforth will lead the nearly three dozen staff members at the union's headquarters in Tukwila, a south Seattle suburb, and will oversee the union's offices in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan.
Bofferding, who had led the union since 1991, oversaw a successful 40-day strike in 2000 and negotiated a contract that won hefty pay raises for SPEEA members in December 2005. Critics suggested he ran the union autocratically, a claim he dismissed as unfounded.
Bofferding tried to get his job back. He made it to the top 10 of 42 candidates but was not among the three finalists the board interviewed Friday, SPEEA spokesman Bill Dugovich said.
SPEEA represents about 24,000 engineers and technical workers at Boeing and a handful of its subcontractors in the Seattle area, Oregon, Utah, Kansas, Texas and California.
