The Boeing contract for over 32,000 workers in Washington and Oregon expires next month, and workers have voted to sanction a strike. Their complaints include low pay, frozen pensions, and mismanagement that has resulted in deadly disasters for the company.
Not to detract from the shit going down at Boeing’s production plants AT ALL. Just want to throw in some of my own experience as someone who is in this trade (fabrication whether that be welding, machining, and other kinds of metal working).
I’m going to say this based on two assumptions here, plus my own experience. Assumptions being that Mr. Voss in the article is in a senior role, so I’m assuming he’s an older fellow. And then the picture in the article showing more older gentlemen.
Now unfortunately in the industry, there is A LOT of ageism. Combine this with the fact it is already a dying profession that is aging out. Demand for these jobs is incredibly high. In my experience a lot of these older folk tend to complain to management a lot about the “young, inexperienced ‘kids’” they’re hiring. I get it. To pass the torch to a dumb young adult is probably super hard, and I’m sure a lot of these guys take a lot of pride in what they do. So seeing a young adult come in and make mistakes or do something that isn’t precisely what the older guy would do probably frustrates them. I’ve met people on the complete opposite end of the spectrum who LOVE to teach and pass down knowledge, and people like that are great. However in my anecdotal experience, there’s a lot more folk who like to complain about new hires and their lack of experience, without remembering that at one point they had to learn as well.
What this leads to is a lack of new workers coming into the trade and a lack of motivation to teach new workers coming into the trade. And then you get the end result where a bunch of young people are hired, maybe out of school for the job they’ll be performing and maybe not. Regardless of if they were schooled, they’re not being “schooled” at work, and without the direct experience of their specific new job they make errors.
I also encourage everyone to remember that these older folk probably didn’t go to school either. A big reason the skilled trades are so appealing is because you can work hard to become a master of something without spending an arm and a leg for school, and in return make a decent living. “Laborious” jobs have always been worked by people who generally couldn’t afford a super expensive education. And there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Super long rant, just thought I’d throw my two cents in.
Great insight! Thank you for sharing.