Labor complaint to secure more
information
Boeing Co. managers retaliated against two SPEEA union members
who had been designated as representatives of the Federal Aviation
Administration, after the union members insisted the company
reevaluate prior engineering work on the 777 and 787 to account for
a new FAA advisory.
That’s according to the union, which on April 18 filed a
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint in order to get
access to a report Boeing filed with the FAA about the incident.
The report is needed for the union to successfully appeal actions
taken against one of the affected workers; the other has quit
Boeing over the way he was treated.
“Boeing can tell Congress and the media all it wants about how
‘retaliation is strictly prohibited,’” said SPEEA Director of
Strategic Development Rich Plunkett. “But our union is fighting
retaliation cases on a regular basis, and in this specific case,
Boeing is trying to hide information that would shed light on what
happened.”
Case involves ODA process
The FAA gives Boeing workers the ability to certify the
company’s own work through a practice called Organization
Delegation Authorization (ODA). Under this process, the FAA
delegates some of its oversight authority to Boeing workers, who
act on the FAA’s behalf while remaining on the Boeing payroll. The
ODA practice has been scrutinized by Congress and was the subject
of a study by an expert panel commissioned by the FAA, which
delivered its report on Feb. 26.
That panel found that Boeing workers are reluctant to speak out
about potential safety and quality problems, for fear of
retaliation. The panel also found that Boeing workers are hesitant
to use the company’s “Speak Up” process for a number of reasons,
including the belief that their complaints wouldn’t be acted
upon.
According to SPEEA, the two engineers involved in the complaint
got at odds with Boeing managers in 2022, when they insisted on
using a different set of assumptions in the analysis of the
on-board computer networks on Boeing 777s and 787s, in order to
comply with the new FAA guidance.
Boeing managers strongly objected, saying that going back to run
calculations using the new assumptions would cost money and cause
production delays. But the engineers, working under ODA authority
on behalf of the FAA, held fast to their position that the re-work
was necessary to comply with the agency’s new guidance.
After nearly six months of debate, the two engineers, with
backing from the FAA, prevailed. Boeing re-did the required
analysis.
“This is exactly how Congress intended the ODA process to work,”
Plunkett said. “Working on behalf of the FAA, Boeing employees —
who are experts in their field — go over the work that their
colleagues have done to look for potential mistakes, and if there
are mistakes, they make sure those are corrected.”
Union alleges retaliation
The two engineers were still Boeing employees, however, and
Boeing management was not pleased. When they came up for their next
performance reviews, the two engineers received identical negative
evaluations. Those evaluations are critical, Plunkett said, because
they are used at Boeing to determine raises, opportunities for
promotions and potential risk for layoffs.
The two engineers contacted their union to appeal their
evaluations. SPEEA staff met with Boeing Labor Relations
representatives several times in an effort to correct what seemed
to the union to be a clear case of retaliation. Even after the
manager of the two engineers admitted that he had rated them both
poorly at the request of the 777 and 787 managers who had been
forced to resubmit their work, Boeing refused to change the
engineers’ performance evaluations.
At this point, one of the engineers left in disgust; the other
filed a formal “Speak Up” complaint with Boeing.
Because the complaint alleged retaliation against and
interference with engineers working with ODA designation, Boeing
was required to file a report about the Speak Up complaint with the
FAA.
Boeing officials called the remaining engineer into a meeting,
with a SPEEA representative present. They told the engineer that
the company had filed the required report with the FAA. However,
they said, the engineer’s complaint did not meet the legal
threshold of interference, nor the legal definition of retaliation,
and as a result, they were closing his case.
Boeing denied information request
SPEEA is still pursuing the engineer’s appeal of his negative
performance review.
As part of that, SPEEA sought access to the report given to the
FAA. Boeing refused, even though U.S. labor law generally gives
unions access to the documents they need to appeal adverse actions
taken by an employer against a union member. SPEEA’s April 18
filing of an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the NLRB seeks to
force Boeing to turn over the report to the FAA.
This case is an example of what Boeing workers face when they
push for safety and quality, Plunkett said. “Whether it’s capital R
‘Retaliation’ or not, the fact remains that the two ODA-designated
SPEEA members did the right thing and stuck to their guns despite
heavy pressure from Boeing, and then got hit with career-damaging
performance reviews. This helps show why Boeing doesn’t have a
healthy safety culture.”
For a copy of the union’s Unfair Labor Practice complaint
against Boeing in this case, click here for the link.
SPEEA represents more than 19,000 engineers, scientists, pilots
and technical workers at Boeing in Washington, Kansas, California,
Oregon and Utah and Spirit AeroSystems facilities in Kansas.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240423141747/en/
Media contacts: SPEEA Director of Strategic Development
Rich Plunkett – (206) 674-7366 SPEEA Senior Communications
Specialist Bryan Corliss – (425) 327-3512