This is not good for the already-troubled Boeing.
Newly obtained documents reveal that the airplane
manufacturer has been hit with 32 different claims by whistleblowers over
safety concerns during the last three years.
It also brings up concerns about retaliation from
management regarding the whistleblowers.
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) received the complaints of retaliation between December
2020 and March of this year, according to the agency, which also found that 13
of the complaints were filed under a statute that protects whistleblowing
related to aviation safety; 15 were filed under a statute related to workplace
safety and two were filed under the category of fraud; one was related to the
use of toxic chemicals.
But OSHA closed several of the complaint
cases due to the failure of the whistleblowers to report the incident within a
specified time frame. Five cases were currently still being investigated or
pending assignment.
The list of complaints is not considered large,
since a range of agencies handle whistleblower complaints related to aviation,
including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
OSHA did not respond to requests for
comment.
“For more than a decade, Boeing has had a
safety initiative called Go4Zero that aims to eliminate all workplace injuries.
Over that time, we’ve reduced serious injuries by 26 percent and recordable
injuries by 62 percent, and we continue to make progress,” a Boeing
spokesperson said. “Boeing takes seriously all complaints from employees,
including those made to OSHA related to workplace safety. We cooperate with
OSHA to respond to and address all issues, and we continue to encourage all
Boeing employees to raise safety concerns. Boeing does not tolerate, and our
rules prohibit, retaliation of any kind.”
Ed Pierson, a former Boeing engineer, has accused
the company of a “criminal cover-up” in the investigation of the January 5
incident in which a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines plane midair.
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