Almost all employees today, no matter how well-educated, are nothing but widgets.

[pnwmom]

If experience doesn't matter for the engineers designing and building jet airplanes, those giant masses of metal and plastic that we expect to keep us safely aloft, thousands of feet in the air, then it certainly doesn't matter for engineers who build toasters. Or any other employee, for that matter.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023469058_boeingtransfersxml.html

Boeing expects to save more than $100 million a year by transferring 1,100 research engineering jobs out of the Puget Sound region and an additional 200 from Southern California to lower-pay locations, according to internal Boeing documents reviewed by The Seattle Times.

The documents show the company is willing to spend more than $150 million to implement the plan, laying off people and closing research labs here while moving the work to new engineering centers in Huntsville, Ala.; North Charleston, S.C.; and St. Louis.

SNIP

The company also plans to hire about 660 new people at the new centers, 40 percent of them entry-level engineers.

SNIP

Hans Weber, president of engineering-consulting firm Tecop International, said it’s foolish to look at such employees purely as an expense, “as if you could simply unplug one person because their salary is too high and plug in another one whose salary is lower because he is less experienced.”

SNIP

“The concern is losing institutional knowledge,” Hamilton said. Referring to Boeing’s headquarters, he added, “Chicago right now seems totally tone deaf to that risk.”

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Or farm animals.

[winter is coming]

2. Experience matters, but it costs more.

The executives who get bonuses for cost-cutting need to believe that people are interchangeable widgets, so they can justify using the cheapest widget possible. It apparently never occurs to them that some day, their lives might depend on those decisions.

[quinnox]

3. lol, humorous title

[MannyGoldstein]

4. This kind of stuff worked soooo well for the 787

It will work equally well again.

[Major Nikon]

23. The 787 was engineered in Everett, WA

Just sayin'

[MannyGoldstein]

28. They outsourced lots of production

and, I think, design of subsystems. I think the high level design was done in WA and they sent specs to subcontractors and the subcontractors were supposed to design and build to those specs.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jan/18/boeing-787-dreamliner-grounded

Disaster!

[Major Nikon]

31. Which is the case for virtually all aircraft big and small

But the basic airframe is engineered in Everett and those are the jobs they are moving.

[MannyGoldstein]

32. It was an order of magnitude greater for the 787 than other Boeing planes,

I believe.

"So the Dreamliner’s advocates came up with a development strategy that was supposed to be cheaper and quicker than the traditional approach: outsourcing. And Boeing didn’t outsource just the manufacturing of parts; it turned over the design, the engineering, and the manufacture of entire sections of the plane to some fifty “strategic partners.” Boeing itself ended up building less than forty per cent of the plane."

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/02/04/130204ta_talk_surowiecki

[Major Nikon]

33. That's because the 787 was far more complex

It also had a lot to do with Boeing's largely failed strategy of moving production overseas and to union-free locations in the US. The basic engineering of the airframe and the final assembly were done in Everett. Despite their failures, it appears as if Boeing is still intent on breaking the back of the unions, even if it means breaking the back of their company.

[MannyGoldstein]

34. Which was my original point

Boeing tried to pretend that if they just got the paperwork right, anyone could design and build stuff properly, even cheap labor. It failed. Now they're doubling down on that failed strategy.

[Major Nikon]

38. There was a bit more to it, but that's it in a nutshell

Boeing was a company that made airplanes out of alluminum and rivets and they created an airplane that was radically different. So they would have had to either develop new technologies in house or outsource them and they chose the latter to their detriment.

[pnwmom]

39. And not just the union. Many of the engineers who are being let go aren't union.

There's no protection either way.

[pnwmom]

36. Just sayin what? There wasn't a problem with the engineering design.

The problem was with the execution, in South Carolina and in Asia.

http://www.ibtimes.com/boeings-internal-war-seattle-engineers-point-finger-south-carolinas-shoddy-work-787-dreamliner

The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina is being criticized by Seattle-based colleagues after sending fuselage sections with incomplete hydraulics and wiring for final assembly, according to a report in the Seattle Times.

The shoddy work, according to one employee, is not a new problem and has steadily worsened in recent months, undermining the company’s plans to speed up the production rate to 10 787-8 jets a month.

A Boeing spokesperson said in Monday’s report that its South Carolina plant was delivering on time and making its commitments and that the company sees “no risk to the program.”

However, an engineer from the South Carolina plant has said it is far behind schedule and that management has insisted on sending unfinished planes to Seattle in order to keep up the planned rate.

Various issues have arisen on the line, it has been reported. For example, engineers in Seattle recently worked extra hours on a plane to find out why an electrical system was not working correctly, only to discover that whole sections of electrical wiring were not connected, despite paperwork from Charleston saying they were.

SNIP

[Major Nikon]

37. There were a lot of problems

But most of them seemed to be directly related to the extensive outsourcing.

[truedelphi]

5. With regards to the third worlding of America's Corporate

Engineering and chemistry concerns:

I have yet to hear of any respected educational expert mention how when kids see their well educated parents lose in the workplace, kids realize that studying is irrelevant. Once both highly educated parents are on unemployment, it must be painfully obvious that continuing to do boring homework and struggling to achieve high grades and spend years in a facility to become a chemist or engineer is pointless.

Why? The jobs are not here, so why?

Kids are not stupid. When they see what is happening, they realize it is far better to make videos to post on YouTube, learn to do a triple flip on a skateboard or spend time doing almost anything that is fun rather than hit the books.

[pnwmom]

7. Yes, and this is why the push for STEM training is such a farce.

They want many more newly trained engineers so they can replace older workers with younger ones . . . repeatedly.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. This is what I don't understand. What's the point of studying,

if all manufacturing jobs are moved elsewhere, if the few good jobs are being taken abroad, and those here given away to foreigners who study here by providing them with Hb1 visas upon graduation. What is the point of Americans studying?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. So we can all become rich bosses that exploit the third world.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

14. I think the truth is even more sinister than that. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. That's the message...

These people are idiots. They actually believe ANYBODY can do what they've done because they're idiots and they know they are idiots and it was EASY for them. Their attitude is, if you aren't rich it's your own damn fault. There must be something wrong with you. Probably some character flaw and it's probably laziness. So it makes perfect sense to them to cut off all support because that what dads do to get their sons out the door. Right?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

22. Or maybe it's worse than that. They had it easy, but they're narcissists and they don't give a f

about anyone else, which is how they can destroy the planet for everyone else.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. They actually don't see a problem with a mass extinction...

...because they really believe it will only affect the poor.

[AverageJoe90]

6. This was largely true during the last Gilded Age, too.

History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.....

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. We are not expected to be well off AND "an employee".....

The attitude amongst the wealthy is that employees are low life vermin.

[rickyhall]

11. Who the hell do they think will buy their stuff

If we're all working part time on minimum wage? How do they think a consumer economy is supposed to work if all the consumers are broke? I swear, greed scrambles your f-ing brains, don't it?

[jtuck004]

12. There is a whole world out there to profit from. Don't really need this place except

for certain convenient areas - we really do war better than most anyone, and killing is great for employment - so once they take what wealth they can, they convert the rest of us into a monthly cash flow.

There are several developing nations that will be very profitable over the coming years, and that includes some thought of the global catastrophes about to befall us from climate change. Many of these companies are very forward looking in their tyranny, and most all have a global presence.

Throw enough scraps back to keep people watching cable and sitting in their chairs, and they can just motor on, gathering profits until the next big catastrophe or war or something changes the world.

And as long as they don't teach us about this in school, it is hard to tell people how badly they are being screwed, because they just don't have the basis to conceptualize it. At least not compared to Dancing with the Stars.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. They believe their money makes money on it's own....

I guess it fucks in their wallet.

[Populist_Prole]

13. The mechanics and assemblers, skilled as well, were already thrown under the bus

Face it. Seems Boeing eventually wants to become no more than a brand name in aircraft. I hope Airbus kicks their asses.

[pnwmom]

15. Yes, but these are PhD's. The tech people we supposedly have great shortages of,

necessitating more and more workers on HIB visas.

Some of these are the only engineers in the world with their particular skills, and yet Boeing thinks they can be replaced by freshly minted graduates -- who don't even know how to read schematics from a plane designed ten years ago.

The Chicago Boeing heads adopted their management style from General Electric. They know how to make toasters and washing machines and have no idea that building a jet can't be done the same way.

[Populist_Prole]

17. They also thought they could replace production workers with redneck scabs

Isn't working out too good for the 787 built in SC.

In any case, no one group is any more important than the other in the process of manufacturing.

[pnwmom]

18. Correct. But Boeing's actions with regard to the PhD's proves

that there is NO level of training or education that can set an employee on a solid path. The Republicans and businesses want to blame our unemployment problems on a lack of education or training and that's just not true.

There is a dearth, however, of highly educated technical people who want to work for $15 an hour.

[Populist_Prole]

21. I'll guess they'll find out what an ultimately costly mistake they've made

It'll torpedo their business, at the price of a lot of dislocations and economic hardship. Of course that's what macroecon wonks euphemistically call "creative destruction".

Shame is that that company was one of the few remaining examples of US manufacturing might: Now it's becoming hollowed out and just a brand name "virtual manufacturer".

[winter is coming]

35. "It'll torpedo their business" <--- The problem with that is that the business-destroying

decisions are often made by executives who collect their bonuses and move on to the next company. It's very much like chasing the cheapest production costs around the world: by the time we reach the point where you can't go any lower and companies realize there aren't enough people left who can afford their products, it's too late to avoid a collapse.

[Populist_Prole]

42. That's right

But to the plutocrats, that's not a bug: it's a feature. To them, all the disruption, hardship, impoverishment they leave to solidify their gains, is to them just turning a faucet to get water.

[DesertFlower]

29. my stepdaughter is a video editor/producer at CNN.

she's been with them 20 years. they just let go of 29 editors. she said "they don't want old people". she's 46. it's not the age -- they want younger people starting out so they can pay them less. she knows eventually she'll be let go.

[reformist2]

16. The time has come to demand a right to a basic income - with or without employment!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. That goes against Right Wing Dogma...

They believe God wants you to work.

They also don't believe housework is "work".

[MohRokTah]

26. HE did the same shit to 3M.

The quality of 3M products dropped considerably during his tenure, but the stock price went up and that's all the wealthy care about.

[Horse with no Name]

27. I see it a lot with my fellow nurses

they don't want experience, they want cheap.

[madville]

30. Same types pushing for immigration reform

They want to move to or bring in lower cost labor. 30 million people unemployed in the US and everyone is pushing for the race to the bottom dollar!

[Tsiyu]

40. Fungible Frans and Freddies

You know the saying: united we stand, divided we fall.

The oligarchs have united.

But we rugged individualist worker bees refuse to unite.

Every employee for his or her own self!




It's working out great.

[pnwmom]

41. There are plenty of union members among those being let go.

Being in a union offers no protection in this situation.