Tom_Waarne
Pensions is the big stumbling block by all appearances…
Pensions is the big stumbling block by all appearances…
Demanding raises of 40 percent and the reinstatement of the pension plan; even as the company is bleeding money? Sounds like the union at Studebaker or American Motors.
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The US Air Force’s KC-46A Pegasus (767-200C) as well as US Navy’s P-8A Poseidon (767-800) contract production will be affected too (and nine tankers for Japan on order). Boeing also has P-8A contracts with eight foreign nation’s air forces and navies. There will be delay fees levied against Boeing on top of everything else. Then there is the unknown impact of the cost of this strike on the already-delayed T-7 Red Hawk trainer and F-15EX. Fortunately the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet production is ramping down, but it is going to be miraculous if Boeing survives this. Other long-historic industry leaders have met their demise under far less headwinds.
As it was not stated, I wonder if they were offered 35% and the pension they would agree?
I get the point they are trying to make, Boeing Execs have gotten paid millions while driving the company into the ground so instead of putting blame on the workforce, start paying them and treating them better.
This is one time I don’t think the CEO is in any real strong position to hold off on an agreement. Take the damn lumps this round, get the workers working and figure out how to dig out of the hole created from mis-management.
Pay up or shut it down.
The problem with the idea that execs get paid millions while the workers starve, is that the execs can go somewhere else, ANYwhere else, and reel in the same millions. Millions of dollars per year is what top execs are getting paid. That’s the cost of doing business. That cannot be redirected to employee compensation and benefits. You cannot hire a CEO, COO, CFO, or any other exec of a company like Boeing for 150k/year. That’s the way our corporate economy works.
Now, did the execs run Boeing into the ground? They sure did. But they’ll still haul in their hefty checks.
This is an essential industry. Why hasn’t the President intervened and forced arbitration? A never ending labor dispute is not acceptable.
The usual class warfare, union bosses vs the mythical overpaid management. Rank and file ought to try management before criticizing it. No wonder Boeing and so many other companies are moving their facilities to the union-free South.
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You know, at some point there is a person who says something so off the wall that it just cannot be ignored.
Let’s turn it around for a moment, Management ought to try working in rank and file jobs, not for a day, not for a week, but for a year. They get to experience the piss poor scheduling demands, back breaking work, lack of appreciation, demands to produce and ignore quality for quantity that the rank and file deal with for years and do so for many still living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t think most of those management types could last a month.
I am amazed this is reduced to “class warfare” when it is mostly about getting fair treatment and fair pay from people who get rewarded a lot of money for pretty much screwing over a company. the time when the American middle class and labor class was the strongest was when the pay difference between CEWO and line worker was around 22%. Do you really want to fly on an airplane built by people having the same track record as Boeing executives rewarded up to 400% for losing billions on projects these days.
As to this notion of moving the jobs to the south, what you seem to be now saying is lets see how little we need to compensate workers to maximize profits. I know first hand people working in manufacturing in the South and the lack of commit to the work, lack of quality, and rapid turn over actually creates more cost then savings and now, quality control needs to be increased or else some cars would not be safe to drive.
When Boeing built the iconic 747, they did so with union jobs and the company made hay for decades on that skilled labor that were dedicated not just to the company, but to the craft of building the best planes in the world. It only took Boeing executives a few decades to destroy that and you suggest, let’s make it worse. Oh and fun fact, Airbus is mainly built with union labor and (gasp) they are kicking Boeing’s screw the labor maximize profit ass.
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Bucc5062, I couldn’t agree more.
Yes, I have heard these arguments made by union loyalists many times, including when I worked in a union machine shop in the bowels of Detroit in the late 1970s, when union leaders drove the auto industry into the ground there, to the benefit of the South. I suggest you read “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. The vast majority of successful business owners & CEOs started from the ground up, and built their wealth over many decades of long hours and great personal risk. Many failed and lost everything. Labor has a very powerful means to achieve their goals: their feet. If they do not believe that their employer is compensating them fairly, they can resign and find an employer that does. Or start their own business. No company will survive long when they drive away the best employees. Free markets work great, when government and middle-men get out of the way. Will Boeing fail one day? Perhaps. But that would free up labor and capital to do things even better.
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Yes Kent, I agree that the auto workers drove the car manufacturers into the ground. Which is why American cars sucked for about 25 years after that. But I was at Boeing (engineering) when we heard of all the defects and rejected planes by airlines coming out of the South Carolina shop.
Back in the day, the Boeing employees did have many other places to go and work. Now, its down to two others in the US, and they don’t even make commercial aircraft any more, so they wouldn’t have the capacity to take a lot of machinists.
The problem is that Boeing, and in general numerous US businesses stopped working as a team and created a very adversarial relationship instead.
Yes, the Boeing executives screwed up everything they could with short-sightedness that can only be attributed to a capitalistic attitude gone wild to “eat the company today because tomorrow it will die”.
On the other hand, now, the workers are happily cutting their noses in spite of their faces.
The ONLY way to get out of this with a better result is to build a LONG term ABSOLUTE commitment by the company to TRULLY compensate workers, with dependence on results. Such commitment should be iron-clad, including making the employees first receivers in case of bankruptcy or similar dirty tricks by management, because there is always the risk that another 'jack welcher" will return to rob whatever value a team can build. Also, employees must get a say within management, and must truly get an advantage from such success as shares in the company, etc.
Unless Boeing starts to act as a team, I believe it is doomed. And part of starting up is a thin period for both management and workers. And yes, it does mean reducing compensation to management as well. SIGNIFICANT reduction. And those that do not want that may leave now, with no golden parachutes. I am not convinced that they justify their multimillion salaries, and that one cannot do a decent job on 150K/yr.
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The problem is a problem that has become problematic for problem solvers. Problems are problems when they become problems and are very problematic when the problem becomes a bigger problem. The problem is really the bigger problem. I really, really feel every problem has feelings and feelings can be problematic when a problem presents itself as a real problem. Problems, problems, problems.