In my Washington union experience, working in hospitals, the management are best buds with the union representatives. This leaves the worker no place to go when management becomes abusive. And yes, hospital management is often abusive. I have seen workers go directly to the state labor board with out a thought of checking in with the union. Except for the Boeing union, unions in this state are just a sham for management to legitimize it’s practices. No one is watching union and management collusion. Just more of my money going down a rat hole.

I am a IAM union worker at Boeing. The union has been the BEST thing ever for my economic well being.The Boeing company never negotiates in good faith NEVER. They have forced us out on strike with takeaway contract offers every time. A two year delay on the 787 did not happen because of a 2 month strike. South Carolina will never make a 787 unless we fly down hundreds of workers to help them FACT. We have been flying boeing workers to that factory for 2 years now and we are just getting started. If Boeing was non union I would not work there no way in Hell.

Well, Robley, the "BEST thing ever for [your] economic well being" is now driving your employer out of the state. You know, your employer, the one who actually signs your paychecks, as opposed to your union, which gives you a 2 month vacation for chump change and then threatens your long term employment.

I'm sure SC will be just fine making airplanes in a few years, and then you and your unemployed union buddies can take a lifelong vacation and muse about those good old days when you felt like Boeing owed you something.

Well JTHC, A few facts just for you although I am sure you know everything. Boeing is spending 2 billion dollars in SC to save 10 million in wages here.Any idea how long it will take the Boeing company to break even on this poor investment? In 2015 they will build 5 planes a month in SC we will build 40 per month in the Puget sound region. The Boeing company made 8 billion dollars in profit between 2005 and 2008 then wanted takeaways in our contract. I am sure you think that's a fair deal but we did not. I own stock in the boeing company "alot" as do my union brothers and sisters. We are the Boeing company. Also for your information the union only does what the membership tells them to do. There is not one person on the board of directors for the boeing company from the Boeing company.When the share holders get tired of the bad decisions there will be a change. When the Boeing company merged with McDonald Douglas we were taken over by a company that was going under. MD way of building airplanes is how we are building the 787. I am sure that you think the 787 is going great but its a mess for sure. In closing: Unions made the middle class in this country and you, JTHC and you family have benefited from the hard struggle of organized labor. Myself and my union buddies will be just fine.

By T.M. Sell
Boeing’s decision to place a second 787 production line has launched the usual squadron of handwringing, blame-laying and introspection. Handwringing, as in Boeing is going! The sky is falling! Sound the alarm! Blame–laying, as in Democrats/liberals/unions, etc., have made this such a horrific place to do business that Boeing had no choice — no choice I tell you! — but to move to the welcoming arms of the business-friendly south. And introspection, as in “What else could we have done? Where did we go wrong?”

Here’s what I’ve learned from the whole misadventure:

First, McBoeing’s board of directors remains rather short-sighted.

Next, some people in South Carolina are a bit insecure. In a TV interview Wednesday I said that Boeing was essentially assigning production of its most technologically advanced jetliner to “the functional equivalent of Wal-Mart greeters.” Some folks down there took that personally, judging by the e-mails I’m getting. They needn’t have. I don’t have anything against South Carolina or its people; I was talking about the relative wages that will be paid.

Boeing will pay workers around $14 an hour to a do job that pays more than $26 here. Think about your job: If they cut the pay for your position by almost half, what level of talent would your employer attract? As it turns out, the starting machinist's wage here for a comparable position is only $15; the $26-an-hour figure is for someone with 20 years of experience.

So here's the problem with moving to South Carolina, now. Having essentially junked the careful, collaborative process that made the 777 such a success, Boeing has collected a fleet of trouble trying to sort out the problems of the even-more complicated 787. So the answer is opening up a second production line for a jet that still isn’t ready to fly? And staffing it with new hires? In a state where you’ve already had considerable production problems, problems so bad, your evil, unionized Washington workers have had to fix them?

It’s not about the quality of workers in South Carolina. Frankly, it wasn’t fair from the start to ask a lot of recently trained workers to put out parts of the precision and quality required for jetliners.

Yes, they make BMWs in South Carolina, and they’re just dandy. But automobiles are not airliners. (As one aerospace CEO once told me: “Sure, we could build dashboards [instead of composite parts]. But it would be more dashboard than you’d ever need.”) Automobiles never run the risk of just falling out of the sky.

So getting a second line up and running in South Carolina seems like a potentially expensive gamble for Boeing, at a time when they’re still trying to fix the original product.

As for who to blame, there’s only person: Phil Condit. Condit was CEO when Boeing made the unfortunate decision to become McBoeing by merging with McDonnell Douglas, which had essentially failed at the commercial aerospace business. It was McDonnell Douglas holdovers who managed to bungle the Air Force tanker contract; it was McDonnell Douglas holdovers who managed to lose the Joint Strike Fighter competition.

And it is, to some extent, McDD holdovers on the board who have brought in the General Electric style of management, in which workers are interchangeable parts of no particular value. They let Alan Mulally escape to rescue Ford without federal bail-out dollars, and brought in Jim NcNerney. This is now a company with a short-term focus in a long-term business. They’re about to spend around $900 million to save $9 million a year in labor costs. Condit, who was plenty smart, should have smelled a lemon and walked away when McDonnell Douglas offered itself up for sale. Boeing hasn’t been the same since.

Don’t blame the unions. McBoeing clearly had no interest in negotiating, only using the machinists to pry a better deal out of South Carolina. The union offered what Boeing wanted, but asked for something in return.

Don’t blame state government, unless you think Washington can become a state with taxes so low we have to be bailed out by the feds. Because that’s where South Carolina is. Its unemployment taxes (a frequent complaint of McBoeing’s with regard to Washington) are so low that their unemployment fund went bankrupt last year, and had to be bailed out by the feds.

The final irony here is that your federal tax dollars are effectively subsidizing McBoeing’s move to South Carolina.

The question shouldn’t be what could have done? The right question is what should we do now? If Boeing is going (and I don’t want to chase them out the door), let’s go after somebody else — Airbus, Bombardier, Embraer. We have the talent and infrastructure for world-class aerospace work. Let’s use it