Boeing’s factory floor workers feel ‘overmanaged and undersupported’

A dozen current or former Boeing employees who spoke with The Seattle Times, as well as interviews with 13 front-line workers conducted during the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation of the near-catastrophic incident in January when a panel blew off a 737 MAX plane mid-flight, have portrayed consistent problems on the factory floor. Boeing lost institutional knowledge during the pandemic and hasn’t yet caught up, they say. The company pushes workers to move quickly to get planes out of the factory, and sometimes ignores the correct sequence of work and neglects to document deviations. And upper management doesn’t want to hear their safety concerns. Boeing employees are “overmanaged and undersupported,” Patric Boone, a machinist who works in Boeing’s Everett delivery center on its KC-46 military tanker, says. “The house is on fire, and they’re concentrated on turning the lights off. They’re not seeing the problem.” Despite the challenges, some workers still believe in the safety of the planes they build, and emphasize the importance of how the company bounces back from its mistakes.