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The entire purpose of SLS is to create high-paying jobs and they just... didn't. Imagine having a blank check and cheaping out. Amazing.

by wmf 2y ago

toomuchtodo 2y ago
If you can get away with the share buybacks and other self enrichment, with no accountability mechanisms, this is a natural outcome based on who is in charge of these companies. But, if we were to have made these workers government employees to pay them the desired wages (and cut out the management and shareholder middlemen) as well as “pay, train, retrain”, we would have been laughed at as promoting government waste. Much harder to skim government wages as a for profit enterprise vs government contracts. Like a religion or a cult, you have to cut through the ideology; the ideas are parroted to control the narrative. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-rot-at-the-heart-of-boeing/ https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-rot-at-the-heart-of... https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-disaster-american-businesses-greedy-broken-stock-market-wall-street-2024-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-disaster-american-bus...
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Why would the qualified people who desire to work in that location and have better options suddenly work for the government. If the idea is to train non-experienced people that's what Boeing did. What is going to prevent them for leaving for other local work that pays better once they have some experience. What the government should have done is reduce their pay for missing deadlines by having milestones in the contract. At that point paying more makes economic sense and wages would rise.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Because government jobs are secure, Boeing subcontractor jobs where you are a cheap disposal cog are not. If you don’t see the value in security to someone making $20-$40/hr who needs healthcare benefits, you might start there. A union fixes this in the long term, but that will take time. Government can employ rapidly. Something, quickly, needs to change before we forget how to build because MBAs, accountants, and lawyers burned the place down for shareholder value. There are two astronauts stuck in space very publicly demonstrating this.
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      A welder making double outside of the government would take a chance the more experience they have. Similiar to how many people here would rather get a job at Amazon vs the government. Chances are you are out in a year or two compared to a government job where you can survive longer for half of the pay. Remember we are talking about experienced aircraft welders. They are not available for 20 an hour when industry is paying so much more.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        Collins Aerospace is offering $19/hr for third shift welding work on aircraft. It was referred to me by someone in the labor community, and I spoke with HR under the guise of a prospective candidate to confirm. They do $26B/year in revenue.
        lifeisstillgood 2y ago
        This should be a top level comment - it kind of reinforces the point of the whole article. I understand that 15/hr is the (planned) US minimum wage?
        notabee 2y ago
        People have been talking about raising the minimum wage to $15 for so long now (the "Fight for 15" movement started in 2012) that the inflation-adjusted value of that would now have to be almost $21/hr. However, the minimum wage is still $7.25 and seems to be likely to remain so.
        mrguyorama 2y ago
        The federal minimum wage has zero chance of increasing unless we get a supermajority of Democrats in both wings of congress and the presidency. Republicans, voters included, largely do not want the minimum wage to go up.
        consteval 2y ago
        To put into perspective how abysmal 19 an hour is, I used to make 22 an hour working at a gas station. Second shift, not third. And I'm not in a high COL area.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > if we were to have made these workers government employees The problem is monopoly. Spacefaring isn’t exactly the type of work that attracts the safe and secure job for life types. (Most folks I know at SpaceX would have chosen another career if the only option were a public job at public pay with public promotion limits.)
  - edmundsauto 2y ago
    What do you think has changed since the 1960s? There were high paying private industry union protected skilled jobs, but many people went to work for NASA.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > What do you think has changed since the 1960s? There were high paying private industry union protected skilled jobs, but many people went to work for NASA We were spending more money. There was competition among contractors. And there were skilled low-level labourers from WWII.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      The USSR had just beat the US to put the first man into space. The same USSR that was killing political dissidents en masse and building an arsenal of terrifying nuclear weapons. John F. Kennedy set out the ambitious goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and then he was assassinated. People wanted to make that happen. So they did. There hasn't been a lot to inspire people to work for the government like that lately.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > same USSR that was killing political dissidents en masse and building an arsenal of terrifying nuclear weapons One more factor: decolonisation created new countries. That created a unique competition for ideological supremacy.
      - thriftwy 2y ago
- lupusreal 2y ago
  NASA has piss all experience hiring and keeping the best fabricators, the government uses contractors to build things. The problem is with this contractor being rotten and NASA not being willing to kick them to the curb.

The entire purpose of SLS is to create high-paying jobs and they just... didn't. Imagine having a blank check and cheaping out. Amazing.

by wmf 2y ago

The entire purpose of SLS is to create high-paying jobs and they just... didn't. Imagine having a blank check and cheaping out. Amazing.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

If you can get away with the share buybacks and other self enrichment, with no accountability mechanisms, this is a natural outcome based on who is in charge of these companies. But, if we were to have made these workers government employees to pay them the desired wages (and cut out the management and shareholder middlemen) as well as “pay, train, retrain”, we would have been laughed at as promoting government waste. Much harder to skim government wages as a for profit enterprise vs government contracts. Like a religion or a cult, you have to cut through the ideology; the ideas are parroted to control the narrative. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-rot-at-the-heart-of-boeing/ https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-rot-at-the-heart-of... https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-disaster-american-businesses-greedy-broken-stock-market-wall-street-2024-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-disaster-american-bus...

ipaddr 2y ago
Why would the qualified people who desire to work in that location and have better options suddenly work for the government. If the idea is to train non-experienced people that's what Boeing did. What is going to prevent them for leaving for other local work that pays better once they have some experience. What the government should have done is reduce their pay for missing deadlines by having milestones in the contract. At that point paying more makes economic sense and wages would rise.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Because government jobs are secure, Boeing subcontractor jobs where you are a cheap disposal cog are not. If you don’t see the value in security to someone making $20-$40/hr who needs healthcare benefits, you might start there. A union fixes this in the long term, but that will take time. Government can employ rapidly. Something, quickly, needs to change before we forget how to build because MBAs, accountants, and lawyers burned the place down for shareholder value. There are two astronauts stuck in space very publicly demonstrating this.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    A welder making double outside of the government would take a chance the more experience they have. Similiar to how many people here would rather get a job at Amazon vs the government. Chances are you are out in a year or two compared to a government job where you can survive longer for half of the pay. Remember we are talking about experienced aircraft welders. They are not available for 20 an hour when industry is paying so much more.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Collins Aerospace is offering $19/hr for third shift welding work on aircraft. It was referred to me by someone in the labor community, and I spoke with HR under the guise of a prospective candidate to confirm. They do $26B/year in revenue.
      - lifeisstillgood 2y ago
        This should be a top level comment - it kind of reinforces the point of the whole article. I understand that 15/hr is the (planned) US minimum wage?
        notabee 2y ago
        People have been talking about raising the minimum wage to $15 for so long now (the "Fight for 15" movement started in 2012) that the inflation-adjusted value of that would now have to be almost $21/hr. However, the minimum wage is still $7.25 and seems to be likely to remain so.
        mrguyorama 2y ago
        The federal minimum wage has zero chance of increasing unless we get a supermajority of Democrats in both wings of congress and the presidency. Republicans, voters included, largely do not want the minimum wage to go up.
        consteval 2y ago
        To put into perspective how abysmal 19 an hour is, I used to make 22 an hour working at a gas station. Second shift, not third. And I'm not in a high COL area.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> if we were to have made these workers government employees The problem is monopoly. Spacefaring isn’t exactly the type of work that attracts the safe and secure job for life types. (Most folks I know at SpaceX would have chosen another career if the only option were a public job at public pay with public promotion limits.)
- edmundsauto 2y ago
  What do you think has changed since the 1960s? There were high paying private industry union protected skilled jobs, but many people went to work for NASA.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > What do you think has changed since the 1960s? There were high paying private industry union protected skilled jobs, but many people went to work for NASA We were spending more money. There was competition among contractors. And there were skilled low-level labourers from WWII.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    The USSR had just beat the US to put the first man into space. The same USSR that was killing political dissidents en masse and building an arsenal of terrifying nuclear weapons. John F. Kennedy set out the ambitious goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and then he was assassinated. People wanted to make that happen. So they did. There hasn't been a lot to inspire people to work for the government like that lately.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > same USSR that was killing political dissidents en masse and building an arsenal of terrifying nuclear weapons One more factor: decolonisation created new countries. That created a unique competition for ideological supremacy.
    - thriftwy 2y ago
lupusreal 2y ago
NASA has piss all experience hiring and keeping the best fabricators, the government uses contractors to build things. The problem is with this contractor being rotten and NASA not being willing to kick them to the curb.