Lost in all of this discussion is the fact that Boeing problems began with South Carolina. The fact that politics played a big role in opening that plant should not be ignored. MAX wasn’t just designed poorly, the organization process within Boeing was already failing. It’s a corporate culture failure.
The airplane wasn’t designed in South Carolina. That issue with the unions is one manufactured by the unions and is nonsense. The union PR machine has a vested interest in pushing that narrative.
Unions produced decades of incredibly reliable plans, so it seems like a huge leap to assume that they're the cause.