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Boeing workers vote to strike

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#301

Post by hobs »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #248
mricordeau wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but Toulouse is way cheaper than any Tier 1 city in the US and you have to include insurance/health, school cost in the US (I'm from Toulouse and living in the US for more than 10 years). If you make 250k/year in Tier 1 city in the US it's probably as good as making 80k/year in Toulouse.

Don't Boeing engineers also get insurance and 401k from their employer? Plus, they'd have to learn french also. France is not very accommodating to non French speaking foreigners. Trying to get around in life with just English there outside of Paris is not easy.

That's funny you say that because my experience of France is that everyone outside of Paris seems to hate the Parisians more than me, an American.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#302

Post by tbrownaw »

ryandrake wrote: post #288
tbrownaw wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People dying due to profit-motivated corporate negligence and the corporations in question getting a slap on the wrist? As opposed to what, people dying because government workers were negligent or on a power trip and nobody getting even that much accountability?

You know, it's possible that both are bad. The root problem is that the rich and powerful[1] face no consequences for wrongdoing. It's endemic to every part of life, and nothing gets done about it because the rich and powerful make the rules. It really doesn't matter if they happen to be aligned with "Team Corporation" or "Team Government". They are equally unaccountable to justice. 1: Rich and Powerful are both the…

> the rich and powerful[1] face no consequences for wrongdoing.

Bernie Madoff. Jeff Epstein & Ghislane Maxwell. Sam Bankman-Fried. Elizabeth Holmes. Harvey Weinstein.

I get that sometimes you'll see things like Hunter Biden's tax issues being allowed to pass the statute of limitations, but a universal "the rich never face consequences" is just plain false.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#303

Post by jandrese »

iancmceachern wrote: post #86

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.

On one hand I can't blame any engineer that wants to flee, but on the other Boeing really can't afford any more brain drain. We are already seeing the results of years of forcing experienced but well paid engineers out and outsourcing their jobs. Planes literally falling out of the sky, but some nice fat executive bonuses.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#304

Post by [deleted] »

kevindamm wrote: post #241
badpun wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading that one engineer spent 6 years designing „ventilation for seats 40-80” on one of the larger Airbuses. It seems like the amount of design and engineering work required for a prototype of a complete aircraft (assuming you buy the engines) is just immense.

How much of that time was actual engineering-tradeoff decision-making and how much of that was working in a large corporation with abundant communication overhead?

[deleted]

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#305

Post by consteval »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32
NotACop182 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe had the company not prioritized greed and instead invested in itself they wouldn’t be in this mess. Don’t blame the workers for this and a company that depends so heavily on the government to keep it afloat shouldn’t be allowed to buyback stocks. Unions in a good place because Boeing isn’t going anywhere. Mismanagement allowed the greedy management to cash out already why not the workers.

I see this repeated often - blame placed entirely on management and not the workers. Why do you believe that? Do you honestly believe that they have not contributed at least partially to the decline of Boeing? That union protectionism has not affected productivity? That hostile bargaining and strikes hadn’t hurt their finances? Accusing the company of prioritizing greed and blaming the boogeyman of management sounds…

> Do you honestly believe that they have not contributed at least partially to the decline of Boeing?

No, because they just do what they're told. If the stuff they do is bad then necessarily the stuff they're told is, too. Therefore, it's management/business' fault. Boeing IS NOT an engineer run company.

> That union protectionism

Literally does not exist in the US, anywhere. We have huge problems with union busting and anti-union propaganda. The union existing and having a drop of bargaining power isn't "protectionism" - your lenses are skews.

> That hostile bargaining and strikes hadn’t hurt their finances?

Uh... this isn't a problem of finances, it's a problem of poor management. Planes falling out of the sky, coverups, lies, stock buy backs. A strike doesn't cause your executives to lie to the media and the FAA, does it?

> boogeyman of management

No management exists. The company does make decisions about its products, strategies, investments, time, etc. Those decisions ultimately decide the trajectory of the company. I don't think that's a boogey man.

> unbiased perspective

Yes, those repeating anti-union propaganda, which has been built up for at least 70 years in the US, are surely the unbiased ones. I don't know what to tell you hear other than - do you hear yourself? If you told me this was a comment from a c-suite exec I'd believe you.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#306

Post by ryandrake »

csomar wrote: post #266
photonthug wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are very few good stories with unions but most of them are tragic especially long-term. Since unions helped to end practices like child labor and what amounted to indentured service, I’m not sure you know what “tragic” or “long term” means. If what you mean is more like “what have they done for us lately”, you should probably just say it and start that conversation instead

[flagged]

Your first paragraph was pretty much true. Unions don't exist to be nice to the executives and shareholders. That's not their purpose. Their purpose is to act as a balance to the outsized power that corporate management and shareholders wield in the employee-employer-shareholder relationship. They only care about the "health" of the company to the extent that the company is healthy enough to provide good compensation and working conditions to employees. They're not there to add shareholder value. This is working by design.

You're getting hot backlash for framing this as tragic. Doubly so since you identify as "part of the worker class" but your entire post is simping for the executive and shareholder class who don't care about you and would lay you off without even thinking about it if it would increase the stock price.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#307

Post by consteval »

OxO4 wrote: post #58
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this repeated often - blame placed entirely on management and not the workers. Why do you believe that? Do you honestly believe that they have not contributed at least partially to the decline of Boeing? That union protectionism has not affected productivity? That hostile bargaining and strikes hadn’t hurt their finances? Accusing the company of prioritizing greed and blaming the boogeyman of management sounds…

Often, people try justify high pay for management positions by pointing out the responsibilities that comes with such a position. If that's the case, then it only makes sense to place blame on management when things go sideways. If not, then what exactly is the value that management adds to the company that justifies their high pay?

It's the same thing when people talk about the "risk" of owning a business. At the same time, those same people will advocate dodging accountability for business owners.

If there's no threat of liquidation, fines, bankruptcy... what's the risk? If the fed can't come into your home and take your furniture... what's the risk? Because those workers end up homeless in the case of failure. And the owners just go back to their mansions like nothing happened?

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#308

Post by ryandrake »

tbrownaw wrote: post #302
ryandrake wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, it's possible that both are bad. The root problem is that the rich and powerful[1] face no consequences for wrongdoing. It's endemic to every part of life, and nothing gets done about it because the rich and powerful make the rules. It really doesn't matter if they happen to be aligned with "Team Corporation" or "Team Government". They are equally unaccountable to justice. 1: Rich and Powerful are both the…

> the rich and powerful[1] face no consequences for wrongdoing. Bernie Madoff. Jeff Epstein & Ghislane Maxwell. Sam Bankman-Fried. Elizabeth Holmes. Harvey Weinstein. I get that sometimes you'll see things like Hunter Biden's tax issues being allowed to pass the statute of limitations, but a universal "the rich never face consequences" is just plain false.

You can always cherry pick a few counter examples to any argument without invalidating the typical case.

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#309

Post by orbisvicis »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #221
fragmede wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen how much lambasting Boom Aerospace gets every time they come up? Starting a new aerospace company isn't for the faint of heart!

> much lambasting Boom Aerospace gets If Boom wants respect, they should merge with Sergey Brin's LTA Research. Supersonic airships are the future's future.

Supersonic dirigibles? Isn't that an oxymoron?

Re: Boeing workers vote to strike

#310

Post by zooq_ai »

echelon wrote: post #142
bibelo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Boeing engineers should leave and start their own company. "American dynamism" is hot right now and there should be ample funding available. Lots of the old dinosaurs are being nipped at by nimble upstarts like Anduril.

Engineers always over value their ability to start companies on their own. There is a lot to building a successful company and needs irrationality and risk-taking (not exactly traits of a median engineer).

Engineers like Musk, Zuck, Gates are outliers than the norm. If you are a Boeing Engineer and had above average risk-appetite, you wouldn't be stuck in Boeing for 10+ years.

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