4 ms·

Not that it detracts from the claims presented in the article, but the fact that the author is a seemingly high ranking person in his union adds a degree of pol

Not that it detracts from the claims presented in the article, but the fact that the author is a seemingly high ranking person in his union adds a degree of politics to it.

hugi 7y ago
Why? Is this opinion rooted in the American hatred/demonization of unions? I come from a scandinavian country and it would be pretty normal for a union spokesman to comment on something like this. What would be his "political" point here?
- cnnrro 7y ago
  Personally I didn't read it as having to do with hatred of unions, more just a reminder of political incentives. It's very much in a union's best interest to divert blame from the engineers it represents onto the companies "cost-cutting culture". It could very well be the truth that the cost-cutting culture is to blame. But it's always worth noting incentives of parties in cases like this.
  - hugi 7y ago
    Why would it be in the union's interest to "divert blame from engineers"? Does it benefit financially from it? Do their members somehow benefit from it? Are you saying that Boeing wants to blame their Engineers and this is now a fight between Boeing and it's employees? Serious questions, I'm not quite understanding that corporate culture.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Boeing made changes that reduced the number of higher-paid engineers in the Seattle area, and moved some of the work to lower-paid and offshore engineers. That hurt this guy's union; it would help the union to get Boeing to reverse that.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      SPEEA is a union representing (and collecting union dues from) Boeing's US engineers but not the $9/hr outsourced engineers. [0] That being the case, the motivation to ensure that the former are not blamed for the 737-Max issue and to call into question the quality of work of the latter is probably clear. [0] - http://www.speea.org/Join_Our_Union!/FAQ.html http://www.speea.org/Join_Our_Union!/FAQ.html ("Where do SPEEA members work?")
    - cnnrro 7y ago
      I think these are great questions, but I'm probably not the best person to answer them. Hopefully someone else here has a better understanding of unions. But, as far as I can tell this isn't a fight, but it's more like marketing to the public in a way that might be beneficial for future negotiations. I guess a union's purpose is to protect and benefit it's members. A example scenario I could imagine (complete fiction) might be Boeing tries to look good to shareholders by laying off several teams, blaming engineers and management of them for the safety issues. This could benefit the company financially. By preemptively making sure the public is aware that corporate culture is to blame it'd likely make a move like that far harder to enact. Making it clear that this is the fault of the corporation, not the individuals, keeps the union members safe in this case. This scenario is likely unrealistic. But maybe someone has a better explanation/historical example?
    - nexuist 7y ago
      > Why would it be in the union's interest to "divert blame from engineers"? I don't know how it is in other places, but in the U.S. every unionized employee has to pay a fee to the union for the benefits it provides them. These benefits may include protection from corporate leaders if they try to fire you (see also: police officers, tenured teachers). > Does it benefit financially from it? Not directly, but there are a lot of employees who would be upset at the union if they paid their dues and still got fired anyways. Other employees would see this and be more hesitant at supporting the union in the future. Alternatively, if there's a possibility that a lot of employees (>100) can be fired as a result of the fallout from this mess, that's >100 union fees that can no longer be collected. > Do their members somehow benefit from it? See protection described above. Note that, for some reason, some American unions believe in protecting their employees even if they deserve to be fired. I think this is where the politicization claims come in. By supporting this union leader you are supporting no accountability for engineers or managers who maybe should be fired. Or so the argument goes, I don't really agree with that line of thinking but it's understandable why people would see it this way, especially given the line between police unions and police brutality. > Are you saying that Boeing wants to blame their Engineers and this is now a fight between Boeing and it's employees? Honestly? Kind of. I mean, I'm not Boeing, but they certainly seem to be trying to paint this situation as a technical issue rather than a political/financial one. They sold a separate upgrade to the plane that provided two sensors instead of one, which could have fixed the MCAS problems. Why didn't the original plane just come with two sensors? Etc... I'm actually interested in your perspective now. How are unions seen in your culture? Are these problems of unions protecting bad employees present in your country, or is it an American thing?
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Union spokespeople are in the business of (literally paid to be) preserving local, union jobs. They are likely going to speak negatively of even the greatest off-shoring/out-sourcing or other labor cost-savings effort.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wglb 7y ago
  Not addressing the "political", but the headline says he is an engineer, but in actuality he is 'A senior member of the union representing Boeing’s engineers', an important distinction.
  - theclaw 7y ago
    Why can’t he be both?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      He could be. But, as it happens, he's not. He hasn't worked for Boeing since 2000.
    - sseveran 7y ago
      According to his LinkedIn he left his position at Boeing as a physicist in 2000. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-sorscher-4573b57/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-sorscher-4573b57/
- chessturk 7y ago
  > Is this opinion rooted in the American hatred/demonization of unions? More or less. Unions are viewed as anti-corporate (rather than an balancing factor), anti-job, and anti-right wing by the Republican party. Even someone who believes in unions in the US would see unions as political. Some of this comes from machine poltics of the early 1900s, but that being a real factor in American democracy has passed from living memory for the most part. It is much more rooted in the corporate supremacy of the 1980s with strikebreaking and what not.
- tracker1 7y ago
  The union position would be in support of local labor, who make and cost more as opposed to the outsourced labor. In practice, I've seen mixed sides to all of this. Boeing itself is a very large, very litigious organization, and there's a lot of issues at play. Boeing is also a major military supplier as well. In the end, it's probably at least partially true and very biased at the same time. I think the biggest arguments about unions are if they provide value, and if you are required to be part of a union in order to work in a given position/company. There've also been weird reverse-unions where the union is actually on the employer network's side. I've seen this happen locally with regards to nursing workers, the collective is member operated under the various hospitals and providers for fixed, down-ward driven rates.
jonas21 7y ago
Also, the headline "Boeing engineer breaks silence on MAX 737" is a little bit misleading -- he left Boeing in 2000, long before development on the 737 MAX started and has been working for the union since then.
- hugi 7y ago
  That means this problem has been going on for over 20 years, and probably longer. Which is kind of scary.
  - orwin 7y ago
    The problem has been going since Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing money. Douglas shifted in the 80s to a state monopoly culture, where politics is more important than engineering and safety (see DC-10), a bit like lockeed martin. Boeing was still a company "a la" Dyson, led by engineers before the acquisition (in 97). I think the first Boeing non-engineer CEO was hired in 2004.
Spooky23 7y ago
Not really. As you’ve seen with any other person speaking out from any company, squeaky wheels tend to get disappeared. A union allows workers to speak out without fear of losing their jobs. The implicit approval gives more credibility to the author.
viburnum 7y ago
We hear from CEOs constantly and that’s normal, down to what books billionaires like to read, but god forbid someone representing workers gets a chance to be heard.

Not that it detracts from the claims presented in the article, but the fact that the author is a seemingly high ranking person in his union adds a degree of politics to it.

hugi 7y ago

Why? Is this opinion rooted in the American hatred/demonization of unions? I come from a scandinavian country and it would be pretty normal for a union spokesman to comment on something like this. What would be his "political" point here?

cnnrro 7y ago
Personally I didn't read it as having to do with hatred of unions, more just a reminder of political incentives. It's very much in a union's best interest to divert blame from the engineers it represents onto the companies "cost-cutting culture". It could very well be the truth that the cost-cutting culture is to blame. But it's always worth noting incentives of parties in cases like this.
- hugi 7y ago
  Why would it be in the union's interest to "divert blame from engineers"? Does it benefit financially from it? Do their members somehow benefit from it? Are you saying that Boeing wants to blame their Engineers and this is now a fight between Boeing and it's employees? Serious questions, I'm not quite understanding that corporate culture.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Boeing made changes that reduced the number of higher-paid engineers in the Seattle area, and moved some of the work to lower-paid and offshore engineers. That hurt this guy's union; it would help the union to get Boeing to reverse that.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    SPEEA is a union representing (and collecting union dues from) Boeing's US engineers but not the $9/hr outsourced engineers. [0] That being the case, the motivation to ensure that the former are not blamed for the 737-Max issue and to call into question the quality of work of the latter is probably clear. [0] - http://www.speea.org/Join_Our_Union!/FAQ.html http://www.speea.org/Join_Our_Union!/FAQ.html ("Where do SPEEA members work?")
  - cnnrro 7y ago
    I think these are great questions, but I'm probably not the best person to answer them. Hopefully someone else here has a better understanding of unions. But, as far as I can tell this isn't a fight, but it's more like marketing to the public in a way that might be beneficial for future negotiations. I guess a union's purpose is to protect and benefit it's members. A example scenario I could imagine (complete fiction) might be Boeing tries to look good to shareholders by laying off several teams, blaming engineers and management of them for the safety issues. This could benefit the company financially. By preemptively making sure the public is aware that corporate culture is to blame it'd likely make a move like that far harder to enact. Making it clear that this is the fault of the corporation, not the individuals, keeps the union members safe in this case. This scenario is likely unrealistic. But maybe someone has a better explanation/historical example?
  - nexuist 7y ago
    > Why would it be in the union's interest to "divert blame from engineers"? I don't know how it is in other places, but in the U.S. every unionized employee has to pay a fee to the union for the benefits it provides them. These benefits may include protection from corporate leaders if they try to fire you (see also: police officers, tenured teachers). > Does it benefit financially from it? Not directly, but there are a lot of employees who would be upset at the union if they paid their dues and still got fired anyways. Other employees would see this and be more hesitant at supporting the union in the future. Alternatively, if there's a possibility that a lot of employees (>100) can be fired as a result of the fallout from this mess, that's >100 union fees that can no longer be collected. > Do their members somehow benefit from it? See protection described above. Note that, for some reason, some American unions believe in protecting their employees even if they deserve to be fired. I think this is where the politicization claims come in. By supporting this union leader you are supporting no accountability for engineers or managers who maybe should be fired. Or so the argument goes, I don't really agree with that line of thinking but it's understandable why people would see it this way, especially given the line between police unions and police brutality. > Are you saying that Boeing wants to blame their Engineers and this is now a fight between Boeing and it's employees? Honestly? Kind of. I mean, I'm not Boeing, but they certainly seem to be trying to paint this situation as a technical issue rather than a political/financial one. They sold a separate upgrade to the plane that provided two sensors instead of one, which could have fixed the MCAS problems. Why didn't the original plane just come with two sensors? Etc... I'm actually interested in your perspective now. How are unions seen in your culture? Are these problems of unions protecting bad employees present in your country, or is it an American thing?
sokoloff 7y ago
Union spokespeople are in the business of (literally paid to be) preserving local, union jobs. They are likely going to speak negatively of even the greatest off-shoring/out-sourcing or other labor cost-savings effort.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wglb 7y ago
Not addressing the "political", but the headline says he is an engineer, but in actuality he is 'A senior member of the union representing Boeing’s engineers', an important distinction.
- theclaw 7y ago
  Why can’t he be both?
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    He could be. But, as it happens, he's not. He hasn't worked for Boeing since 2000.
  - sseveran 7y ago
    According to his LinkedIn he left his position at Boeing as a physicist in 2000. https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-sorscher-4573b57/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/stan-sorscher-4573b57/
chessturk 7y ago
> Is this opinion rooted in the American hatred/demonization of unions? More or less. Unions are viewed as anti-corporate (rather than an balancing factor), anti-job, and anti-right wing by the Republican party. Even someone who believes in unions in the US would see unions as political. Some of this comes from machine poltics of the early 1900s, but that being a real factor in American democracy has passed from living memory for the most part. It is much more rooted in the corporate supremacy of the 1980s with strikebreaking and what not.
tracker1 7y ago
The union position would be in support of local labor, who make and cost more as opposed to the outsourced labor. In practice, I've seen mixed sides to all of this. Boeing itself is a very large, very litigious organization, and there's a lot of issues at play. Boeing is also a major military supplier as well. In the end, it's probably at least partially true and very biased at the same time. I think the biggest arguments about unions are if they provide value, and if you are required to be part of a union in order to work in a given position/company. There've also been weird reverse-unions where the union is actually on the employer network's side. I've seen this happen locally with regards to nursing workers, the collective is member operated under the various hospitals and providers for fixed, down-ward driven rates.

jonas21 7y ago

Also, the headline "Boeing engineer breaks silence on MAX 737" is a little bit misleading -- he left Boeing in 2000, long before development on the 737 MAX started and has been working for the union since then.

hugi 7y ago
That means this problem has been going on for over 20 years, and probably longer. Which is kind of scary.
- orwin 7y ago
  The problem has been going since Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing money. Douglas shifted in the 80s to a state monopoly culture, where politics is more important than engineering and safety (see DC-10), a bit like lockeed martin. Boeing was still a company "a la" Dyson, led by engineers before the acquisition (in 97). I think the first Boeing non-engineer CEO was hired in 2004.

Spooky23 7y ago

Not really. As you’ve seen with any other person speaking out from any company, squeaky wheels tend to get disappeared. A union allows workers to speak out without fear of losing their jobs. The implicit approval gives more credibility to the author.

viburnum 7y ago

We hear from CEOs constantly and that’s normal, down to what books billionaires like to read, but god forbid someone representing workers gets a chance to be heard.