Boeing workers call "too big to fail" status into question
With an overwhelming majority, Boeing workers voted to reject the latest contract offer from Boeing executives and go on strike this Thursday. Despite the contract offering a 25% raise over four years, union members agreed that this was not sufficient to make up for treatment that has occurred since the last contract negotiation 16 years ago. This strike is another in a long line of problems for the airline company this year, which has left two astronauts stranded in space, had a large hole in a craft filled with Alaska Airline passengers, and plead guilty to fraud charges after failing to properly take accountability for crashes in 2018 & 2019.
After the crashes for which Boeing was found responsible in 2018 & 2019, BBC reported that Boeing agreed to pay around $700m in penalties, monitoring, and safety improvements. This may seem like a high price, but it pales in comparison to the $14bn contracts that the company gained from the Department of Defense in 2022 alone. This furthers the question "is Boeing too important and too connected to be held responsible?"
Thankfully, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are tired of watching company higher ups get raises while the employees receive nothing. While fighting for increased pay and benefits, these union members will be doing what the US courts have failed to do: hold Boeing accountable. Boeing will be unable to properly manufacture airplanes without its striking workers, which will cause the company to lose money and potentially lose contracts to other manufacturing companies. Fed up workers are hitting Boeing where it hurts, thereby forcing the aerospace company to wonder if they are truly "too big to fail."
I think that the "too big to fail" question is not only one that should be asked about Boeing but other massive companies or even in politics. This case shows how the workers can rise up and make a company question how powerful and strong they really are. This was very important to do because it seems that Boeing has not been able to stay out of the news with all their mishaps and mistakes, that have the potential to harm lives. On the politics side of this there are a lot of people who vote based on the lesser of the two evils especially in the most recent elections. I wonder if there's a strike the American people can go on to demand change beyond just voting.
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