Boeing has avoided an engineering strike after more than 17,000 engineers and technical workers on Thursday approved a four-year contract offer promising wage increases and other perks.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace wrapped up its electronic voting at noon.

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The bargaining team had recommended members accept the offer as it guarantees a 34% pay boost over four years, including a nearly immediate 10% increase in October. The deal also enhances health care and retirement benefits and adds two vacation days, a new floating holiday, and three bereavement days.

Alex Phillips is a software security engineer for Boeing in Seattle, and he's been fighting for a big pay bump.

"To improve members’ lives and help Boeing do better," Phillips explained. "There’s a lot of things in this contract that I think are stepping stones for making improvements."

Kevin Boyd works out of the Auburn facility as a cutting tool designer, and said it was critical for this contract to increase base salaries.

"I hope this is a foundation we can continue to build a relationship with Boeing," Boyd added.

The agreement means the aerospace company has narrowly avoided a shutdown of engineering development and regulatory compliance at a time when Boeing is under pressure to improve build quality and clear its aircraft backlog.

"The stakes were really high. Certification of the new Boeing 777 and the [Boeing 737] MAX 10 kind of hung in the balance. Those programs surely would’ve been delayed if the engineers and technicians had gone on strike," Leeham News and Analysis Editor Howard Hardee explained. The trade publication and consulting firm tracks Boeing's production struggles, regulatory hurdles and labor relations.

The machinists went on strike for nearly two months in 2024, which hurt the company's bottom line, brought commercial activity across the Puget Sound area to a standstill and hurt efforts to ramp up production rates for the 737 MAX program. Hardee said that's what Boeing wanted to avoid happening again in this round of negotiations.

"Generally speaking, [Boeing has] had series of wins. They got the MAX 7 certified," Hardee stated. "They have had a setback on certification of the MAX 10, but getting this negotiation process behind them I think is a really positive development for Boeing, and for people watching the industry it can only be a good sign of their continued recovery."

The company has said these final amounts are $11,000 more for professional employees and $8,000 more for technical workers than under its initial offer, which the union rejected in August.

Following the vote to approve the contract offers, Boeing issued this statement:

“We’re pleased with the outcome of the vote. We look forward to working with our team to support our company’s continued recovery and meeting our customer commitments now and into the future.” – Ben Nimmergut, vice president and functional chief engineer for Production Engineering