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Boeing workers vote to strike

washingtonpost.com

291–300 of 578 posts

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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You're getting downvoted but you're 100% right. The Reagan-era conservative propaganda is so unbelievably strong that even when a private corporation kills hundreds of people, people will STILL use the opportunity to point at the public sector. No, they don't operate like the public sector because they're actually in the private sector. But the propaganda is so strong that it's literally unthinkable for a private act…

I didn't read the OP as saying, "Private sector good; public sector bad." I read him as saying, "Unregulated monopoly bad."

I think a more charitable read of the OP is that the FAA hasn't done a good job regulating Boeing because the FAA is in Boeing's pockets. Boeing is so critical to national defense that the regulators don't want to rock the boat and risk getting fired. Both Boeing and the FAA need to be cleaned up.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#292
post #106

Any Boeing engineers who may be looking for alternate paths, please know that I've known many great aerospace engineers who have made a pivot to medical devices very successfully and many of the best medical devices to come out in recent years are due to such. It seems very different but really it's very similar.

or they could come here to Toulouse to work for Airbus ^^

They have nothing Tolouse right now.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#293

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If the supply of labor is so high then Boeing can hire scabs. I don’t follow how on the one hand the workers add so little value and are so replaceable that they deserve no raise and then on the other hand their strike could kill the company. I also don’t follow how paying union dues is a problem if they’re going to get you a 25 - 40% raise whereas you’re unlikely to get anything on your own. I get not everyone likes…

I think it's extremely unlikely Boeing would be allowed to replace the union with scabs. The NLRB is not current business-friendly, I'm 99% sure they would find a way to forbid it.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think government agencies exist to solely help the American people then how do you explain the DMV experience?

Go to a DMV or a post office in a country that isn't the US. It can actually be a pleasant experience.

It depends on the country, though. I love Japan, where I lived for eight months and where I frequently travel to, but dealing with government services there can be stressful. Granted, the clerks are professional and cordial, but be prepared to deal with long waits and perplexing bureaucracy. The United States is not unique when it comes to the stereotypical “DMV experience.”

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it won't, because only about 30% of F150 parts are made in the US. The rest are made elsewhere - mostly China. This is not 1940, and the US simply doesn't have the strategic industrial base it used to. Off-shoring made some people a lot of money and lowered consumer costs (while simultaneously cutting consumer pay.) But it was economically and strategically unwise. The US is set up to run small-scale wars against…

Considering the US hasn't won a single war against technologically and numerically inferior opponents since the turn of the century, I think we have even more fundamental problems than just a rusty war machine dependent on Chinese blue jeans. Now granted I might be unfair to the US here; the Middle East is known as the graveyard of empires for a reason.

The US did not lose the war against Saddam. The war was started under false pretenses and they made a mess of the reconstruction after, but that's different from a military defeat. If one side of a war manages to destroy the other's military, execute its leader, and set up shop in his palaces; that's a win on the military front.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#296
post #234
post #200

Just watched a documentary on Boeing an hour ago. It’s incredible that they avoided criminal prosecution despite two planes crashing, door popping out and then paperwork somehow going AWOL. Also Boeing knew about wiring issues since 2022 and the FAA only issues an inspection order in ‘24. Gonna try and avoid Boeings of all types going forward

They hired the lead prosecutor that cut them a deal. To be precise a Boeing criminal defence firma hired her after she left the Justice department. It's the American way.

> Boeing’s lead corporate criminal defense law firm is Kirkland & Ellis. Cox, the lead prosecutor in the Boeing case, left the Justice Department earlier this year. And last month she joined Kirkland & Ellis as a partner in its Dallas office.

It looks like the firm bought the prosecutor, resulting in a win for its client. How could this be prevented, though? Politicians can't be trusted with oversight like this--they would use it to punish prosecutors and would inevitably further politicize the Justice Dept.

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/lead-boeing-...

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just malicious. Boing is the exemplar capitalist enterprise, traded, where the sole objective is profit above everything else, including safety and following regulations obligations, something that they can do because they bought politicians (lobby aka legal corruption).

Their stock is down 55% in the last five years. How is that an exemplar of profit making capitalism?

> How is that an exemplar of profit making capitalism?

They still exist and are regularly pumping out millionaires from their executive suites.

It's helpful to think about corporate America as a gigantic factory, but instead of a factory that makes gadgets or appliances, it's a factory that makes millionaires. On one end of the factory, the raw materials come in: Able-bodied workers, money from customers, and capital from investors. On the other end of the factory, the finished product--millionaire executives--fly out on golden parachutes into retirement. In the back, the waste from the manufacturing process gets discarded: The broken lives and bodies of all the rank-and-file workers, and all the negative societal and environmental externalities that were also destroyed in the process.

Profit for shareholders and [temporary, conditional] employment for workers are mere side effects of the process, and they'd do away with the second one if they had the technology to.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX has done such a phenomenal job rebuilding from scratch. How is it not obvious to you rebuilding airlines from scratch is also the best route?

Lottery tickets are not policy. SpaceX took decades to get to the success they realize today, having been founded in 2002, and it took a lot of luck to build a rocket shop from scratch. We must realize that companies are not built out of Legos, but ecosystems that require care, feeding, and are fragile systems.

PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX,… how many times does someone “win the lottery” before it’s not actually chance? Not saying anyone can repeat it, or a random IC could leave and succeed, but that space seems ripe for disruption. (Maybe not passenger planes, but cargo with less liability.)

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions aren't a monopoly they're a democracy. After a democratic vote, the minority has to accept what the majority wants. Yes, sometimes voters make poor choices. New workers know about the union before they join. You don't move to a new state and refuse to pay taxes because you didn't vote for them. Once you're there you get to vote in the next election. America is a democracy and you don't have to revert to feudal…

Unions are absolutely monopolies. That's why the US Federal government has used anti-trust laws to break them up before.

No, the US gov used anti-trust laws to break them up because anti-union efforts are valuable to corps. That's why you'll also see so much anti-union propaganda today.

It's no secret unions are the weakest they've ever been in the US. Are we really better off for that? If you ask the people benefiting from union busting, yes. If you open your eyes, no.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#300
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or they could come here to Toulouse to work for Airbus ^^

That's not a great plan if what they're looking for is a higher salary though. Engineering in western Europe doesn't pay nearly as well as in the US.

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