10 ms·

IIRC, the Washington workers are union while the South Carolina workers are not? (Though I don't know about the specific roles/titles involved in this round.

IIRC, the Washington workers are union while the South Carolina workers are not? (Though I don't know about the specific roles/titles involved in this round. But the article raises the open question about S.C. jobs.) Also, I wonder whether and how much of this work is moving overseas. P.S. Quick google reveals: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/these-workers-want-a-union-deep-in-trump-country-they-just-might-have-a-chance/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/these... http://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/14348/Machinists-Union-to-Trump-Bring-Boeing-Jobs-Home.aspx http://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/1... http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-agrees-to-open-737-center-in-china-inks-300-new-jet-orders/ http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing... The last two are talking about fit, finishing, and parts, and they cite the machinists' union. One might call that a bit apples versus oranges with respect to the OP. Nonetheless, at the time there was language (PR and corporate-speak) about no jobs leaving Everett and potential increased demand increasing headcount there.

joezydeco 10y ago
The headline says "engineers", so they're probably not in a union no matter what location they occupy.
- jamroom 10y ago
  I believe many of the engineers are in the SPEEA: http://www.speea.org/ http://www.speea.org/ "Since January 2016, Boeing has cut 1,332 engineering and technical jobs from its Washington workforce". As a Washingtonian I am _so happy_ we gave Boeing 8.7 billion in tax breaks and incentives. They're taking that money and using it to maintain their work force elsewhere :/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - gshulegaard 10y ago
    Is there any information indicating that they are moving their workforce elsewhere? The select quoting of the article here implies that the market demand is waning: > The latest job cuts followed a prior involuntary reduction of 245 workers set for May 19 as the company responded to increasing competition and slowing aircraft sales. > "We are moving forward with a second phase of involuntary layoffs for some select skills in Washington state and other enterprise locations," the memo said. "We anticipate this will impact hundreds of engineering employees. Additional reductions in engineering later this year will be driven by our business environment and the amount of voluntary attrition." Sounds like cuts across the board, not cuts in Washington and growth elsewhere.
    - chaostheory 10y ago
      I haven't read anything specific and I could be wrong but it feels like it's just the trend: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-...
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    >>taking that money and using it to maintain their work force elsewhere I'd look at Chicago. That's where the HQ and executives are, right?
  - projectileboy 10y ago
    Very common. Another fun example is the huge tax break MN gave to Northwest Airlines to build an Airbus maintenance facility in northern MN. They took the tax break and never built the facility. Or how about cable companies getting tax breaks to build out high speed internet in rural areas? One could go on...
  - flukus 10y ago
    It's also a sign the company is circling the drain, it's the more qualified people that tend to take voluntary redundancies and take their chances in the job market. This leaves a lot of dead weight behind.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      If you do layoffs repeatedly while not hiring anyone, yes, it can be very bad. But the aircraft industry is cyclical. I suspect Boeing has done layoffs/hiring/layoffs/hiring cycles repeatedly in the past.
  - cylinder 10y ago
    Tax breaks simply should not exist on any level. I can't think of something more absurd than picking people to give tax breaks to.
- civilian 10y ago
  Nope, Washington State Boeing engineers are 100% in a union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engineering_Employees_in_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engine... http://www.speea.org/ http://www.speea.org/
  - jcadam 10y ago
    IIRC, even most (all?) software engineers working for Boeing in Washington State are required to join the union. I worked for Boeing in Colorado on a major govt satellite program several years ago (non-union in CO of course), and when I received a WARN notice when our contract was ending I began looking around the company for other positions. All the SW Eng jobs I could find in the commercial aviation BU in Washington were listed as being "Union." Blech. I ended up leaving the company after I figured out that Boeing's hiring and transfer policies meant it was easier to quit and apply for jobs as an external applicant, rather than applying as an internal candidate.
    - froindt 10y ago
      I don't know if it's any different for software engineers, but I have a friend who did an industrial engineering internship there a couple years ago. He was treated exactly like a full-time employee (full benefits, 401k, etc.) and had the option to join the union or not. It was barely any more for him to join so he did.
  - coredog64 10y ago
    False. As an engineer you have the option of joining SPEEA, but it is not a requirement. Joining the union offers some benefits, and some people do so for personal/political reasons. One useful benefit was publication on anonymous salary information around raise time. You see exactly where you stand without violating the privacy of your peers. Source: I'm a former Boeing employee (DS9 - Real-time systems simulation engineer)
    - civilian 10y ago
      Right. But if you don't join, you still have to pay union dues, right? That requirement kind of blurs things in my mind.
kcorbitt 10y ago
I have a friend who's a long-time engineer at Boeing (in Washington). He'd always complain that union rules were strict to the point of ludicrousness, eg. if he got a new desktop computer he was prohibited from plugging it in himself; he had to file a ticket and get it plugged in by a member of whatever union had staked a claim to that task. Not really related to the article, but yeah, I can't imagine that level of union-driven bureaucracy is good for productivity.
- jamroom 10y ago
  This isn't union - this is just how huge corporations work. I worked for Verizon and they did the same thing - everything was locked down and you had to file a Remedy ticket to get anything done (ugh).
  - mentat 10y ago
    Verizon is union too.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      Perhaps, but the point is true. Large, traditional companies do this sort of thing. Sometimes because of unions. Others times for "security reasons" or "3rd party contract" reasons, etc.
  - kcorbitt 10y ago
    I don't know... I work for a (non-unionized) company about half the size of Boeing, and we don't have anywhere near that level of bureaucracy, so I have a hard time accepting the premise that "that's just how things have to be." I'm sure there are a lot of contributing factors, but I don't have a hard time imagining unions contributing to process creep by mandating the allocation of tasks in a non-optimal way. I'm no hardcore anti-unionist, but this particular situation seems like a very plausible late-stage union failure mode.
    - drewrv 10y ago
brightball 10y ago
Correct on SC being non-union https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/these-workers-want-a-union-deep-in-trump-country-they-just-might-have-a-chance/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/these... Despite a very active campaign for several years.

joezydeco 10y ago

The headline says "engineers", so they're probably not in a union no matter what location they occupy.

jamroom 10y ago
I believe many of the engineers are in the SPEEA: http://www.speea.org/ http://www.speea.org/ "Since January 2016, Boeing has cut 1,332 engineering and technical jobs from its Washington workforce". As a Washingtonian I am _so happy_ we gave Boeing 8.7 billion in tax breaks and incentives. They're taking that money and using it to maintain their work force elsewhere :/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gshulegaard 10y ago
  Is there any information indicating that they are moving their workforce elsewhere? The select quoting of the article here implies that the market demand is waning: > The latest job cuts followed a prior involuntary reduction of 245 workers set for May 19 as the company responded to increasing competition and slowing aircraft sales. > "We are moving forward with a second phase of involuntary layoffs for some select skills in Washington state and other enterprise locations," the memo said. "We anticipate this will impact hundreds of engineering employees. Additional reductions in engineering later this year will be driven by our business environment and the amount of voluntary attrition." Sounds like cuts across the board, not cuts in Washington and growth elsewhere.
  - chaostheory 10y ago
    I haven't read anything specific and I could be wrong but it feels like it's just the trend: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-...
- wavefunction 10y ago
  >>taking that money and using it to maintain their work force elsewhere I'd look at Chicago. That's where the HQ and executives are, right?
- projectileboy 10y ago
  Very common. Another fun example is the huge tax break MN gave to Northwest Airlines to build an Airbus maintenance facility in northern MN. They took the tax break and never built the facility. Or how about cable companies getting tax breaks to build out high speed internet in rural areas? One could go on...
- flukus 10y ago
  It's also a sign the company is circling the drain, it's the more qualified people that tend to take voluntary redundancies and take their chances in the job market. This leaves a lot of dead weight behind.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    If you do layoffs repeatedly while not hiring anyone, yes, it can be very bad. But the aircraft industry is cyclical. I suspect Boeing has done layoffs/hiring/layoffs/hiring cycles repeatedly in the past.
- cylinder 10y ago
  Tax breaks simply should not exist on any level. I can't think of something more absurd than picking people to give tax breaks to.
civilian 10y ago
Nope, Washington State Boeing engineers are 100% in a union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engineering_Employees_in_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engine... http://www.speea.org/ http://www.speea.org/
- jcadam 10y ago
  IIRC, even most (all?) software engineers working for Boeing in Washington State are required to join the union. I worked for Boeing in Colorado on a major govt satellite program several years ago (non-union in CO of course), and when I received a WARN notice when our contract was ending I began looking around the company for other positions. All the SW Eng jobs I could find in the commercial aviation BU in Washington were listed as being "Union." Blech. I ended up leaving the company after I figured out that Boeing's hiring and transfer policies meant it was easier to quit and apply for jobs as an external applicant, rather than applying as an internal candidate.
  - froindt 10y ago
    I don't know if it's any different for software engineers, but I have a friend who did an industrial engineering internship there a couple years ago. He was treated exactly like a full-time employee (full benefits, 401k, etc.) and had the option to join the union or not. It was barely any more for him to join so he did.
- coredog64 10y ago
  False. As an engineer you have the option of joining SPEEA, but it is not a requirement. Joining the union offers some benefits, and some people do so for personal/political reasons. One useful benefit was publication on anonymous salary information around raise time. You see exactly where you stand without violating the privacy of your peers. Source: I'm a former Boeing employee (DS9 - Real-time systems simulation engineer)
  - civilian 10y ago
    Right. But if you don't join, you still have to pay union dues, right? That requirement kind of blurs things in my mind.

kcorbitt 10y ago

I have a friend who's a long-time engineer at Boeing (in Washington). He'd always complain that union rules were strict to the point of ludicrousness, eg. if he got a new desktop computer he was prohibited from plugging it in himself; he had to file a ticket and get it plugged in by a member of whatever union had staked a claim to that task. Not really related to the article, but yeah, I can't imagine that level of union-driven bureaucracy is good for productivity.

jamroom 10y ago
This isn't union - this is just how huge corporations work. I worked for Verizon and they did the same thing - everything was locked down and you had to file a Remedy ticket to get anything done (ugh).
- mentat 10y ago
  Verizon is union too.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Perhaps, but the point is true. Large, traditional companies do this sort of thing. Sometimes because of unions. Others times for "security reasons" or "3rd party contract" reasons, etc.
- kcorbitt 10y ago
  I don't know... I work for a (non-unionized) company about half the size of Boeing, and we don't have anywhere near that level of bureaucracy, so I have a hard time accepting the premise that "that's just how things have to be." I'm sure there are a lot of contributing factors, but I don't have a hard time imagining unions contributing to process creep by mandating the allocation of tasks in a non-optimal way. I'm no hardcore anti-unionist, but this particular situation seems like a very plausible late-stage union failure mode.
  - drewrv 10y ago

brightball 10y ago

Correct on SC being non-union https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/these-workers-want-a-union-deep-in-trump-country-they-just-might-have-a-chance/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/these... Despite a very active campaign for several years.