[russb]

"The pieces are fabricated and joined with the aft pressure bulkhead at Boeing’s North Charleston, S.C. plant and then delivered for final assembly to the company’s nearby final assembly building or flown to Everett, Wash."

Not the first time quality control has been an issue at the N.C. plant.

From a New York Times article back in 2019: "Ever since, Qatar has bought only Dreamliners built in Everett." [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamline...

[aaronbrethorst]

Totally unsurprising that SC is having quality issues.

"We have a manager that will physically watch us while we're working on the jet and watch us as we go to the bathroom," he says. "I'm a 40-year-old military veteran and I have a 20-something-year-old manager asking me why I use time to use the bathroom."

https://psmag.com/economics/a-tale-of-two-boeing-factories

[esaym]

Sounds sucky to always be watched but, as someone that actually worked in an aircraft repair facility, we'd show up for work at 6am, then a 5 minute "break" at 8am and 10am followed by a 30 minute unpaid lunch from 12-12:30. Then another 5 minute break at 2:30pm followed by work ending at 4:30pm. And that was the schedule for Monday-Thursday followed by 8 hour days on Friday and Saturday. It got old quick and I left that field and went back to school lol.

But the point is, anytime you provide 4 "breaks" a day for bathroom time, you'll get some managers staring at you for breaking the pattern. And don't forget that most tasks in aircraft assembly require 2 people. If you're installing fasteners, you've got to normally have someone on the other side of the assembly to either buck the rivet or put a nut on a bolt. So one person running for the toilet causes work to stop for others.

[throwaway_pdp09]

I'm no manager but I'd guess some of the most basic rules of management will say "don't do this". Yet some managers do it, like they can't see the damage it's doing to trust and morale, and that it will simply not (unless under special circumstances) bring any higher quality or other value. Yet still it happens. It's so strange.

[vidanay]

I'd have to resist the urge to walk up to that manager and stare them in the eyes while peeing on their shoes.

[piva00]

Interestingly I found out about Boeing's N.C. plant quality control issues from an Al-Jazeera report on the 787 [0] way back in 2014. The part about the plant has an interview with an employee recording other employees worried about safety, training and other issues. There is a Q&A with a Boeing VP that is interrupted by some PR/legal aide when questions about quality issues in Charleston start.

It's an ongoing issue for quite a long time...

[0] https://youtu.be/rvkEpstd9os?t=1434 (I've timestamped to the relevant part about the Charleston plant)

[PedroBatista]

It has been an issue since the very beginning. The play from Boeing was obviously to cut costs and since many states in the US have been plagued by the complete collapse of manufacturing jobs since at least the 70's they are willing to give Boeing tax cuts and incentives by the billions.

The only small problem is that they turned this plant into a sweatshop, not only the workers have no aviation culture but people in power seem to think they are bolting on just another Ford Pinto like the old days.

[ceejayoz]

> Managers were also urged to not hire unionized employees from the Boeing factory in Everett, where the Dreamliner is also made, according to two former employees.

> “They didn’t want us bringing union employees out to a nonunion area,” said David Kitson, a former quality manager, who oversaw a team responsible for ensuring that planes are safe to fly.

> “We struggled with that,” said Mr. Kitson, who retired in 2015. “There wasn’t the qualified labor pool locally.” Another former manager, Michael Storey, confirmed his account.

Oops.

[hinkley]

The entire 787 project plan smelled like union busting to me. I was very surprised they didn’t strike over it.

But the company also has regrets about how the project was run and vowed not to do that again. I doubt that applies to the [SC] part of the equation, though.

[Pfhreak]

I was at Boeing when that plant opened up. I recall it specifically being talked about in hushed tones as a place where there would be no unions, and thus they could hire cheaper labor.

Don't get me wrong, the Everett plant certainly has had issues in the past (there are plenty of signs hanging up about Foreign Object Debris), but the company seems to have targeted cost cutting as priority one.

[akamia]

I was there at the same time and I remember the exact same thing. There was a lot of talk about this being used to offset some of the losses caused by any future union strikes and also as leverage when negotiating with the unions.

I also remember that there were consistent ongoing quality issues. Planes from SC would require significant rework when they arrived in Everett.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

A lot of your manufacturing is down south because of how hostile it is to unions down here. I know in SC, we have BMW, Volvo and I think Benz along with Boeing on the coast.

[pc86]

Companies wanting to operate in places without unions because the labor is cheaper isn't exactly the kind of thing that requires "hushed tones."

[flowerlad]

And yet they are closing the Everett factory:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/losing-787-would-be-ma...

[ceejayoz]

Yes, as part of a long-running union busting campaign.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/03/boeing-union...

> Boeing’s mere presence in South Carolina was already viewed as a union-busting move when the company first opened an aircraft production plant there in 2011 rather than Washington state, where Boeing had unionized operations. South Carolina has the lowest union membership rate in the United States at just 2.7% of workers. The National Labor Relations Board filed a federal complaint against Boeing for the move, accusing the company of violating federal labor law, before dropping it after the company came to an agreement with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).

[hinkley]

That’s a speculative piece and the one it links to is as well.

The 787 was designed to not require as much infrastructure as the Everett plant has to offer. I’m out of the loop, but Wikipedia still lists most of the rest of their catalog as being produced in Everett, and the new 777 is coming online.

Sounds more like having to choose between 787 capacity and other production lines.

I’m not sure where they get losing the 787 meaning nothing to backfill it. For those specific employees, changing programs may be difficult and not all of them will be picked up, but for the region, I don’t see how this means 30k fewer jobs.

Also Everett does other things besides assembly. I think most of their IT and a few other programs are there.

[erentz]

And now Boeing is mulling closing 787 production in WA and moving it all to SC.

[PedroBatista]

The SC thing was to save on costs, now since this many years passed and no one got killed ( yet ), they are confident they can move it all there, where the sun is bright, the unions are pretty and the wages are low.