Boeing Strike

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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3Green
Are any of you here at POA machinists who are affected by the strike?

My father-in-law is a retired machinist. My cousin's family is affected: her husband is a machinist. They're hoping this gets resolved quickly... they don't have the resources for it to drag out too long (as is the case with most families, I imagine).

She's been trying to keep me in the loop, and says that she feels this is the best unbiased present-both-sides-equally article she's seen about the issues:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily...b2008094_317166.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

Not sure if this would normally be a SpinZone topic or not, I'm not trying to stir the pot; Boeing is an aviation company and I think we can keep this conversation from going SZ. I'm primarily interested if any of our POA family is affected, and what their take is on it.
 
I saw a show recently on AA and the relationship they had with the machinist union. Apparently, it's going quite well after some kicks in the shin by previous executives.
 
I'm in the Engineer's union at Boeing (not the Machinists' Union) and I'm just flabbergasted that Boeing let this happen. This isn't the time to save a nickel or two on wages when billions of dollars are riding on getting the 787 finished.

Our contract is due to expire in a couple of months, too, and if that Business Week article is correct about stuff like the survivor's benefits, I think the engineering union would vote to walk as well.

The trouble is, Boeing needs the engineers to put together an updated tanker proposal. If Boeing plays hardball, they risk BOTH the largest civil program they have, and the largest military program that will come out in the next twenty years.

Madness....

Ron Wanttaja
 
I don't know about the engineers contract, but the machinist contracts looks generous to me. As a stockholder and anti-union guy, I biased and have a small stake in the strike. When companies offer a fair contract and the union wants to play hardball, as it appears to be the case here, I'd like to see the company pull a Reagan move: replace them.

How much profit the company is making has nothing to do with how much machinist should make. There is a market rate for their job and BA is one of the companies that pays the most... how greedy can the union get? Moves like that will only push BA to continue to outsource work.
 
Nope, didn't miss it. But contract negoitiations and the apparent fairness of a union contract strays a bit from the aviation theme, based on an aviation company or not.
 
Sad that the outsourcing issue has cause these delays on the 787.
 
Henning said:
Sad that the outsourcing issue has cause these delays on the 787.
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Not sad for Airbus, but of Boeing is willing to bet the success of their company in order to save face for the management then that is a decision that their share holders will have to take up. Both sides will spin this into making the other side look bad. Both sides are doing their jobs and performing their roles. In the end they both have to decide what is both's best interests.
 
Best statement of the article:

On the other hand, there are plenty of skeptics who say such changes as the shifting of medical costs and the end of traditional pensions are now simply the norm in Corporate America. They argue the union is acting like it's living in the past. "Who has pensions anymore?" asks Boston lawyer Donald Schroeder, who practices labor law for companies. "Unions have had the Mercedes-Benz of health-care plans, but health-care costs have spiraled out of control. Somebody's got to pay for that."

Sorry but healthcare is a BENEFIT, not a right. When did America give up what it is for some psuedo-socialistic mentality that seems to believe that things are someone else' job to "provide".
 
tdager said:
Sorry but healthcare is a BENEFIT, not a right. When did America give up what it is for some psuedo-socialistic mentality that seems to believe that things are someone else' job to "provide".
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Medical benefits were began after WWII in order to draw employees in a crunch a work force. That was a good move but it has since been taken to be a right which of course it is not.
 
tdager said:
Best statement of the article:


Sorry but healthcare is a BENEFIT, not a right. When did America give up what it is for some psuedo-socialistic mentality that seems to believe that things are someone else' job to "provide".
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????? Do you mean the union should negotiate the BENEFIT on behalf of membership ,or should give it back ?
 
AWACSEng said:
Nope, didn't miss it. But contract negoitiations and the apparent fairness of a union contract strays a bit from the aviation theme, based on an aviation company or not.
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Sorry, my quote wasn't directed at you, rather at the one that chose to vent his spleen in the wrong forum...

In any case, I'd agree that this discussion belongs in SZ.


Trapper John
 
jpflys said:
????? Do you mean the union should negotiate the BENEFIT on behalf of membership ,or should give it back ?
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I mean the union should jump into the 21st century and realize that healthcare IS a benefit, not a RIGHT, as they demand. That the worker themselves should shoulder a bigger burden of their OWN DAMN HEALTHCARE.

Sorry...but I am not a fan of unions.
 
Trapper John said:
Sorry, my quote wasn't directed at you, rather at the one that chose to vent his spleen in the wrong forum...

In any case, I'd agree that this discussion belongs in SZ.


Trapper John
Click to expand...

That's ok. People acted like kids throwing tantrums so the mods took away their forum.
 
tdager said:
I mean the union should jump into the 21st century and realize that healthcare IS a benefit, not a RIGHT, as they demand. That the worker themselves should shoulder a bigger burden of their OWN DAMN HEALTHCARE.

Sorry...but I am not a fan of unions.
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Fine, then I'll take an extra $400 in my paycheck....

It actually works in the employers favor to provide the health care. It's pre tax dollars, so there's no matching of funds as if they payed me the difference in money. It also breeds goodwill and employee loyalty and commitment.

Oh wait, so you don't want to pay me for it either....oh, so it's not about who takes care of what, it's down to taking money out of my pocket and keeping it in yours....

I'm not particularly pro union either. Of the seven or so that I've belonged to, the only one I considered to be doing what a union should do was SIU (Seafarers International Union) and the companies I worked for that went through them were pleased as well.

BTW, Trivia here, do you know Kaiser Permanente Health is a left over from Kaiser Shipyards from WWII where they built Liberty Ships? The yards are long closed or under new ownership, but the health care system he started to provide for his employees is still going strong.

This leads to another real problem, **** poor corporate leadership. If your employees are pleased with their situation, they will be more productive and the workplace becomes more productive in a fashion of the sum being greater than the parts. In a companies economic down time, sometimes it's an operational necessity to cut back on things, but when a company is economically fat and the limit on profit is production rather than lack of orders on the books, this approach doesn't make a lot of sense.

I could see several ways to work a solution through discount stock options.
 
p-thomas said:
I'd like to see the company pull a Reagan move: replace them.
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???? With whom? The only guys that have the skill set on the metal birds are already working for the rebuild guys and major operators, and then they'll have to competetively bid for them as well, especially since there will be a good few who won't cross the picket lines. Aviation is still a very union centric industry, and a lot of people back in the 70s burned their careers by crossing them.
 
Auburn_CFI said:
Typical uneducated anti-union rhetoric that is commonplace in this forum.
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Ghery said:
Could be because many of us don't belong to one, and have dealt with them in the past. I'm not a fan, based on experience.
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Some unions are good - Airline pilots, I think, really do need their unions. We all know how inept the management is and how important seniority is, and also how important it is for a captain who has made an executive decision that's good for his passengers and bad for the airline needs some sort of defense when the company wants to can him.

Many labor unions are terrible, though, and I could always tell when I was dealing with one. For example, dockworkers in Baltimore who averaged one pallet loaded on a truck every fifteen minutes (normally the whole truck would be loaded in 45 minutes or less, and that would be 22-26 pallets). The other easy way to tell a union shop was when they would load 20 of the 22 pallets they were going to ship, and then take their hour-long lunch break before loading the last two. :mad:

In this case - Well, Boeing is doing pretty well now, they need to share the wealth with more than just those in the executive boardroom... But both sides need to be a bit less adversarial for me to have any sympathy for either.
 
Auburn_CFI said:
Typical uneducated anti-union rhetoric that is commonplace in this forum.
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Not uneducated. Many of us have dealt with them. They're destroying
business, making us non competitive and forcing companies to move
production off shore.
 
IAM 751 just announced they've hammered out a tentative agreement with Boeing; the 52-day machinist strike may soon be over:

http://www.iam751.org/

Will go to members for a vote in 3-5 days, simple majority needed to ratify.
 
I hope the union and the working folks at Boeing, know the company must be competive on the world market or the jobs go away.
 
RogerT said:
Not uneducated. Many of us have dealt with them. They're destroying
business, making us non competitive and forcing companies to move
production off shore.
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I guess the textile worker unions should have just accepted the 25 cents a day for child labor that companies like Nike give their "competitive" labor in South East Asia and Central America. Unions are just an excuse companies use to outsource or ship jobs over seas. It makes the management feel better about themselves and gives them a scapegoat for failed management or lack of leadership. If your company can find someone to do your job for 20 cents on the dollar and boost the stock price for a quarter, they will because that's their job. It doesn't matter weather you are union or not.

I would love to see the day that unions are no longer needed, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.
 
NC19143 said:
I hope the union and the working folks at Boeing, know the company must be competive on the world market or the jobs go away.
Click to expand...

Well, their trying to be competitive by outsourcing the Dreamliner to China is gonna probably end up costing them a couple of Billion $$$ and more than likely will put the company out of business in a decade or so. Airplanes, especially Carbon Composite airplanes are not tennis shoes or simple welded structures like their (China's) container ships and tankers that break in half in a moderate seaway and corrode through from their poor quality steel, in 5 years. You have to get the carbon composite stuff exactly right, or it's totally junk, catastrophically, explosively so, and the QC is a very difficult process, so much so that every one involved in it has to be committed to excellence and doing everything exactly correct every time. Once it is done and cured, there is virtually no way to tell if it was laid up correctly and what the quality of the fibers are. This isn't bucked rivets and aluminium where you can look at the finished product and see if it's correct or not. The Chinese have already proven in the pet food, human food, medicine and cosmetic industries their willingness to violate the standards of quality that they are contracted to uphold, and there just aren't enough QC supervisors who know Carbon layup technology and the Chinese language to put over on the lines making sure things are done correctly. I think Boeing is screwing themselves farming this stuff out, and the Italians, don't get me started on their crappy manufacturing of composites, I have to deal with their slipshod manufacturing on a daily basis. You have no idea how many multi million dollar yachts I have basically condemned the hulls on survey, and I'm talking less than a year old. It's put a couple manufacturers out of business and cost owners millions. I've dealt with managing build projects overseas, it's really unmanageable from a QC standpoint, especially in China. Boeing is however falling in line with selling the US economy in favor of growing the Chinese consumer base.

Personally, I greatly fear getting on a 787, and that is the first time I say that about a Boeing product.
 
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