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> Apparently he was an engineer sometime in the past, now his job is to push anything that will benefit members of the union, which is what he is doing here. He

> Apparently he was an engineer sometime in the past, now his job is to push anything that will benefit members of the union, which is what he is doing here. He has no specific information about the MAX to offer. The executives of Boeing have pushed anything to benefit the company throughout this story, changing their narrative multiple times. Boeing has handled this entire saga so poorly that I truly don't understand the POV that the union is somehow responsible. The cost savings hindsight argument doesn't address that this was an entirely preventable failure that was caused purely by miscommunication, disorganization, and greed. It's not like the aircraft experienced some unforeseen phenomenon that engineers have never recorded, they introduced a haphazardly flawed feature, they failed to clearly communicate the feature to clients, they failed to properly train the pilots, and people died.

notatoad 7y ago
I don't think anybody was suggesting that the union is responsible, just that a union exec is not a "boeing engineer" as the headline claims, and whistleblowing by an actual engineer who worked on the MAX program and has actual knowledge would be a very different story than just more armchair criticism.
- rossdavidh 7y ago
  I think the task of making a public statement from the engineering point of view, that could be career limiting, is exactly the kind of thing that a high ranking engineering union official should be doing as part of his job representing those engineers. If he is NOT speaking publicly the POV that engineers are grumbling to each other privately, he's not doing his job. This kind of statement is exactly what he should be doing.
  - notatoad 7y ago
    >This kind of statement is exactly what he should be doing. which is kind of my point - he's just doing his job and making a completely predictable and expected statement. I'm not trying to say he shouldn't, but it isn't interesting or newsworthy.
  - ltbarcly3 7y ago
    The problem is that there is no content in this statement. No matter what the actual situation in the company, no matter what happens and without regard for any facts, a union representative is going to say that the best course of action is to stop using non-union labor and to increase wages for union labor. It is literally their full time job to say this whenever and in the most effective way they can.

notatoad 7y ago

I don't think anybody was suggesting that the union is responsible, just that a union exec is not a "boeing engineer" as the headline claims, and whistleblowing by an actual engineer who worked on the MAX program and has actual knowledge would be a very different story than just more armchair criticism.

rossdavidh 7y ago
I think the task of making a public statement from the engineering point of view, that could be career limiting, is exactly the kind of thing that a high ranking engineering union official should be doing as part of his job representing those engineers. If he is NOT speaking publicly the POV that engineers are grumbling to each other privately, he's not doing his job. This kind of statement is exactly what he should be doing.
- notatoad 7y ago
  >This kind of statement is exactly what he should be doing. which is kind of my point - he's just doing his job and making a completely predictable and expected statement. I'm not trying to say he shouldn't, but it isn't interesting or newsworthy.
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  The problem is that there is no content in this statement. No matter what the actual situation in the company, no matter what happens and without regard for any facts, a union representative is going to say that the best course of action is to stop using non-union labor and to increase wages for union labor. It is literally their full time job to say this whenever and in the most effective way they can.