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Any chance you could elaborate on this? I am not following this comment thread, not able to read between the lines.

• jorblumesea 7y ago
  Highly skilled industrial work often requires highly skilled and educated workers, who are more likely to unionize or might already have unions in place. By building facilities that require assembly using less skilled means, you are selecting for a different type of worker and different manufacturing processes. Basically, Boeing tried to turn aircraft manufacturing into something closer to an Amazon fulfillment center. Which certainly helps the bottom line, but maybe not the quality line. The implication about the headquarters is factories closer to the HQ can be easily controlled and execs can fly down and sort out problems. Chicago to Charlotte is < 2 hour flight, Chicago to Seattle is 5ish hours. Also, moving manufacturing out and away from Seattle means the existing unions have a harder time recruiting or setting up sister unions. All of this can be seen within the wider context of the "financialization" of Boeing, with the company moving more towards a business focus and less of an engineering led company. Apologies for the long post, lots going on here.
• sho_hn 7y ago
  I remember reading South Carolina has among the lowest union representation among relevant workers.
  • briandear 7y ago
    And that has no relevance outside of union propaganda. Consider the Mafia tactics of the unions, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was internal sabotage. Union workers aren’t inherently better (or worse,) just more expensive.