Boeing’s largest factory is in “panic mode,” according to workers and union officials, and managers are accused of bullying workers into keeping quiet about quality concerns.
The U.S. plane maker is grappling with a safety crisis sparked by a cabin panel rupture during a January flight and intense scrutiny of its production line as regulators launch a series of investigations.
Its plant in Everett, Washington – hailed as the largest manufacturing building in the world – is the heart of Boeing’s operations, responsible for building aircraft such as the 747 and 767 and repairing the 787 Dreamliner.
One mechanic at the complex, who has worked for Boeing for more than three decades, claimed it was “full” of faulty 787 jets in need of repair.
Many of these jets fly from Boeing’s South Carolina site, where the company has moved final assembly of the 787 in 2021 to its original state. characterized as a cost-cutting measure.
“There’s no way on God’s green earth I’d want to be a pilot in South Carolina flying here with people from South Carolina,” the mechanic, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, told the Guardian. “Because when they get here, we’re going to take them apart.
Managers at Everett “will hound mechanics” to keep quiet about quality assurance issues and potential repairs, the mechanic claimed emphasis on speed and efficiency over safety. He added: “Boeing needs to look in the mirror and say, ‘We’re wrong.’
Boeing did not comment on claims that staff were pressured not to raise quality concerns. Work at Everett on the 787 jets is being done as part of an established verification program, he said.
The company met with US regulators this week to discuss how it plans to address quality control issues. Executives recently described how workers have been encouraged to speak up since January, with submissions to an internal safety and quality portal increasing by 500%.
Earlier this year, a panel of experts appointed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people, described a “disconnect” between Boeing’s leadership and the safety workforce. and made 53 recommendations to help address her concerns.
Following the explosion aboard a brand new Max 9 aircraft in January, the FAA launched a wide-ranging investigation. After a six-week audit of Boeing’s production line found numerous failures to meet manufacturing quality control requirements, the agency gave Boeing 90 days to outline an action plan and address the panel’s findings.
Boeing submitted its proposed plan to the FAA on Thursday. In a statement, the company said it “welcomed” the expert panel’s 53 recommendations. Mike Whitaker, the FAA administrator, told reporters that Boeing had accepted them all.
Najmedin Meshkati, who was on the panel, said Boeing’s safety culture had “eroded” over the past two decades as a result of its merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late 1990s, “under the direct supervision of its leaders and board of directors, who were complicit in its current problems and ultimately responsible for them”.
“Boeing’s most valuable asset is its highly dedicated and skilled workforce, and fortunately most systems-related problems are fixable,” Meshkati, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, said in an interview ahead of the company’s launch. his schedule for this week. “However, Boeing’s corporate governance and perpetual cloning [board] it needs to revamp and diversify,” he added, suggesting it should move its headquarters back to Seattle and “systematically” implement all of the panel’s recommendations.
The FAA this month launched another investigation into the production of the 787 Dreamliner, looking into whether Boeing workers in South Carolina completed required inspections of the plane and whether they “falsified aircraft records,” after Boeing informed the watchdog that it “may not have completed” all the inspections.
Sam Salehpour, a Boeing engineer, testified before Congress in April that the 787 is riddled with quality defects and called for all 787s to be grounded for inspection. Boeing has denied his allegations and said it did “fully confident in the safety and durability” of the aircraft.
A mechanic who spoke to the Guardian described how the “huge failure” on the Boeing 787 production line has put enormous pressure on the company as it tries to appease regulators, airlines and passengers.
“We’re in a panic right now in Everett,” they said, because Boeing executives “finally figured out that they have more people who have no idea what’s going on than people who do.”
A Boeing spokesperson said: “As we have shared publicly on numerous occasions, we will subject all backlogged 787s to our connection verification program to ensure each aircraft meets our exact technical specifications before delivery to our customers. Aircraft assembled from 2022 onwards do not require this additional link verification.
“In mid-2023, we announced that we will move all joint verification efforts to Everett to focus our team in South Carolina on new aircraft manufacturing positions. There has been no change to this plan and our team in Everett has continued to complete the connectivity verification program.”
Some Everett workers characterized the 787 shift manufacturing from Washington to South Carolina as an anti-union move: while Washington has a mechanics union, Boeing’s South Carolina plant is non-union and was the site of controversial union organizing a few years ago.
Another Boeing employee in Everett, who also requested anonymity, drew a contrast between productivity at the Washington state complex and the North Charleston, South Carolina plant, where final assembly of the 787 was moved but no union mechanics were hired.
“We would build 10 to 12 aircraft a month, while South Carolina would build just over two, almost three a month,” he said. “I don’t see them ever getting to 10 a month.”
A “very robust union retention strategy” at Boeing is partly responsible for the broader company safety issues, said Rich Plunkett, director of strategic development for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aviation (Speea), IFPTE Local 2001, which represents 17,000 Boeing employees and supplier Boeing Spirit AeroSystems.
In addition to not hiring union mechanics in South Carolina, Boeing has significantly reduced the number of workers writing instructions for machinists in recent years through outsourcing, voluntary layoffs and layoffs.
“Current employees are not the enemy,” Plunkett said. “They are your solution. And you have to engage them collectively.
“Boeing needs to implement a meaningful no-retaliation policy, demonstrate by speaking out, and stop putting its workforce at risk. [that] if they can’t do everything they can more cheaply that they send the work abroad. Because Boeing’s globalization continues, if not expands, amid what Boeing tells the free world it’s changing culture.
Some veteran union workers at Boeing link its current problems to the company’s move more than two decades ago to introduce “team leadership” managers to replace the previous system in which the most experienced factory workers were in command.
“A team leader is not chosen by his skill in the airplane, but by his relationship with another manager or another person,” said the mechanic. “Now we don’t have team leaders who know what’s going on.
Managers today “thinking has never done physical work before,” they added. “You can’t learn to build an airplane in a school on the third floor. There are a lot of things you can learn in a classroom, but building an airplane is not one of them.”
Boeing said: “We value experience and other factors such as skill set, performance and leadership behind creating a strong leadership team. Our team leadership helps develop employees, while the overall training we provide builds the knowledge and skills of our teammates as they progress through their Boeing careers.
More recently, disagreements between Boeing and the union stalled talks about creating a program for employees to raise safety concerns with regulators without fear of retaliation.
Speea claimed last month that Boeing wanted to control the flow of information to regulators; Boeing said it has offered the union the same deal it signed with another union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and is willing to negotiate.
Boeing did not comment on the company’s stance toward unions, criticism surrounding its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, or complaints about quality assurance problems.