The
troubled Boeing aircraft manufacturing company was hit with two more doses of bad news ahead of the weekend.
Workers went on strike Friday. That comes after the
chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) told Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg
that the company has
a safety culture issue.
There are almost 33,000
machinists at several Boeing plants.
NTSB
Chair Jennifer Homendy told Ortberg what many have long known.
"Unless
they have a partnership with their workforce, a lot of these issues are not
going to be fixed," Homendy said. "Right now they have a workforce
that doesn't trust Boeing, that is afraid of retaliation. As long as that
continues, which is really anti-aviation safety...they're going to have
problems."
Homendy
said Ortberg took their conversation “seriously.” She plans to hold a longer
meeting with the new CEO.
The
company has been under intense scrutiny since a January incident in which a
door panel blew off of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane in mid-air. Ortberg has also met with Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) Administrator Mike Whitaker to discuss company issues.
Boeing
had reached a tentative agreement earlier this week with the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), but that agreement was not
approved by the members themselves.
"The
message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership
was not acceptable to the members," Boeing said in a statement following
the strike vote. "We remain committed to resetting our relationship with
our employees and the union, and we are ready to get back to the table to reach
a new agreement.”
Boeing
knew
that this possibility existed.
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