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 bui

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.