Union official accuses Boeing of more unsafe practices
According Craig Garriott, a union representative at Boeing’s satellite-manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, Boeing’s management has been allowing numerous safety violations to go unfixed in order to focus on profits and fast production.
Acquired by Boeing in 2000, the satellite manufacturing facility has long been considered one of Boeing’s more stable business units. It relies in part on a union workforce that Garriott said is responsible for constructing and testing satellites and their component parts.
“This is perhaps the most technical group of hourly people that you’ll probably find on this planet,” said Garriott, who estimated he’s raised between 300 and 400 safety violations over the past year. Those complaints, he said, range from obstructed fire extinguishers and fire alarms to concerns over heavy machinery blocking exits and trapping workers in certain parts of the factory.
In October, union workers filed a complaint with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration that, according to Garriott, highlighted unsafe conditions on the factory floor. Another technician at the facility, who spoke to CBS News on the condition he remain anonymous to protect his job, said safety had become “an afterthought” and quality had “degraded” over the past five to six years.
It is important to recognize that Garriott’s complaints might simply be the typical tactic of a union representative during or before contract negotiations. There are rumors Boeing plans to sell off its space subsidiaries, which would include this satellite division. Garriott might simply be putting public pressure on the company in order to give himself a better negotiation position if such a sale takes place.
It is also quite possible, based on Boeing’s recent very poor track record in quality control, that everything Garriott says here is also true.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According Craig Garriott, a union representative at Boeing’s satellite-manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, Boeing’s management has been allowing numerous safety violations to go unfixed in order to focus on profits and fast production.
Acquired by Boeing in 2000, the satellite manufacturing facility has long been considered one of Boeing’s more stable business units. It relies in part on a union workforce that Garriott said is responsible for constructing and testing satellites and their component parts.
“This is perhaps the most technical group of hourly people that you’ll probably find on this planet,” said Garriott, who estimated he’s raised between 300 and 400 safety violations over the past year. Those complaints, he said, range from obstructed fire extinguishers and fire alarms to concerns over heavy machinery blocking exits and trapping workers in certain parts of the factory.
In October, union workers filed a complaint with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration that, according to Garriott, highlighted unsafe conditions on the factory floor. Another technician at the facility, who spoke to CBS News on the condition he remain anonymous to protect his job, said safety had become “an afterthought” and quality had “degraded” over the past five to six years.
It is important to recognize that Garriott’s complaints might simply be the typical tactic of a union representative during or before contract negotiations. There are rumors Boeing plans to sell off its space subsidiaries, which would include this satellite division. Garriott might simply be putting public pressure on the company in order to give himself a better negotiation position if such a sale takes place.
It is also quite possible, based on Boeing’s recent very poor track record in quality control, that everything Garriott says here is also true.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I wonder what technique Garriot will pick for his “suicide” or “accident” ?
I know not funny but funny how these things seem to happen at Boeing.
On another topic, Artemis, NASA Administrator Nelson held press conference announcing Artemis 2 crewed lunar orbit pushed back until 2026. Even at that, system will fly modified trajectory from the “skip trajectory” used by Apollo when returning from Lunar operations.
Hard to listen to Presser because sound was so bad. To paraphrase poor Gus Grissom: “How we going to get to the moon if we can’t have a good sound system at a NASA event?”
Wonder how Issacman will approach these things?
Currently, we are on track to let the Chinese get humans to the moon before us. We will keep our pride by saying “Oh yeah…we already did that 55 years ago but WE will land on the South pole before you.”
Do they make weapons at this Plant?
Weapons? Not as far as I know. The facility was originally part of Hughes Aircraft and it has been a satellite building operation from the get-go. It has likely built a number of milsats over the decades it has been in operation, but no weapons per se.
There’s not nearly as much unionized legacy aerospace in SoCal as in past decades these days. The Lockheed Skunk Works and Northrop Grumman’s bomber factory are both still at Air Force Plant 42 in the Antelope Valley well north of L.A. Spirit Aerostructures has a facility in Hawthorne near the SpaceX “mothership.” I think it’s unionized but I’m not absolutely sure. Then there’s Northrop Grumman’s works in Redondo Beach where the JWST was built and the Boeing (ex-Hughes) satellite operation referenced in Bob’s post and that’s about it in the Greater L.A. area. There were once major aircraft factories in Burbank, Santa Monica and Long Beach – all now long gone. Long Beach has a lot of NewSpace plants these days, some of which are former McDonnell-Douglas/Boeing facilities, but none of those are unionized.
I think there’s still a bit of unionized legacy aerospace in Orange County and there’s still quite a bit in San Diego County – more than in L.A. County in all probability. But the old primes have been fading slowly and, under Trump, there is good reason to suppose that process will be notably speeding up. Total SoCal aerospace employment will likely increase but most of the new jobs will be in non-union shops.
Unionization seems to be an increasingly tough sell to Millennials and Zoomers. I have personal knowledge of one sizable aerospace subcontractor that was recently the target of an organizing drive by the IAM-AW. It’s workforce is heavily Millennial and Zoomer and mainly Hispanic, as is generally the case with all manufacturing operations in SoCal these days and for quite awhile. The response was thanks, but no thanks.
Say what you will about unions –but I am inclined to believe them here.
Look for the union label used to mean something.
Over at my other haunt (Secret Projects Forum) there is talk about Mexico’s big aerospace push.
I guess we will see just how much of a populist the Donald is–or if he’s a PINO.
That was a fascinating article. I didn’t know that Boeing had dropped one of their satellites. That is news. As for the employee who was standing under it, what was he doing in such an unsafe location? Maybe, unlike where I have worked, the workers are allowed to stand under loads. One place I worked wouldn’t even let us put our hands under a sling when fastening it to a load.
I am a little bit confused. Garriott has filed complaints that management has been moving equipment in front of fire extinguishers, fire alarms, and exits? Or is he complaining that such storage locations are company policy? Because in the union shop I worked in, only the union people were allowed to move the equipment around, because if a engineer or manager did so, then he was taking a job away from a union worker. So, it seems to me that Garriott is complaining about equipment movements by his own union members.
And how hard is it to move that stuff out of the way? Shouldn’t the other employees clear those pathways to the fire extinguishers, fire alarms, and exits? Seriously, how helpless are these guys?
Robert wrote: “ It is important to recognize that Garriott’s complaints might simply be the typical tactic of a union representative during or before contract negotiations.”
Yeah. That makes sense. The workers create a situation for Garriott to complain about, then Garriott complains and makes the company and management look bad.
Maybe Boeing’s union workforce needs ethics training.
Meanwhile
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/aerospace-outsourcing-in-mexico.44900/#post-733812
I’m a design. engineer at that Boeing, ex-Hughes, site since 1995. It has always been unionized and my opinion is that the union has brought no benefit to cost, capability, quality, ever. Lately, the union folks have been highly combative, argumentative. Not a good look and I suspect any claims from union employees. This space business unit has always been fanatically focused on quality and we struggle with “costs of quality” as a spiral to less production contracts…. to amortize the NRE.