CHICAGO, IL — In a retreat for the world’s second largest aerospace and defense contractor, the Boeing Company has announced that it will provide the same pension survivor benefits to same-sex married couples as it currently offers its traditionally married employees, ending what seemed an intransigent position the engineering, space, security, technology, and financial multinational had taken in November.

At that time, the aerospace giant told the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), the union which represents 23,000 Boeing engineers and technical workers, most of them in Washington State, that in spite of that state’s voter-approved legalizing of marriage equality, Boeing would deny gay couple equal benefits because federal law did not require it.

In 2001, Boeing moved its international corporate offices to Chicago from Seattle, in which city it had headquartered since 1916.