The Cost of Avoiding Organized Labor

[Being]

Boeing chose to use unorganized labor to assemble their Dreamliner. Now, instead of paying those pesky high labor rates that unions demand, they pay unorganized labor overtime (or pull them from the production line stopping production) to fix their own shitty craftsmanship. Anybody got more examples of how much it costs to avoid organized labor?

Boeing pays a price for going cheap on labor.

[Flixy]

Your source does not mention organized labour at all.

I would say that labour being organized or not doesn't have a big impact directly on the quality of work - if anything, making it harder to fire someone could influence it negatively.

That said, I can imagine that for employees it's beneficial to be organized. If you're good at your job, highly skilled, why work somewhere where you don't get those perks? So I can imagine that with unorganised labour, in some sectors, you can't get the best employees since they might be less willing to join. But that would depend highly on the sector and the job market.

So if you're looking for examples of short term cost savings (on e.g. wages, benefits, etc.) leading to a drop in quality, which ends up costing more, there's loads. If you're talking specifically about going unorganised, don't know any examples. And I'm not even sure this is an example, considering not even your source mentions organized labour being a factor. Hell, it doesn't even say that it's caused by shitty craftsmanship. Could be a design issue, a problem with supplier parts, a bad process, equipment, or anything else, really.

[Being]

Your source does not mention organized labour at all.

Yes, I should supply some background info but the source exposes shoddy workmanship from a union forbidden labor force. Boeing began moving all Dreamliner final assembly to S. Carolina around 2009 and problems continue to this day with quality. The federal government denied workers the right to unionize there. Final assembly is where all quality issues are supposed to be flushed out. Parts not meeting spec should be rejected not made to fit as is the case in this article.

[wiggin]

Yes, I should supply some background info but the source exposes shoddy workmanship from a union forbidden labor force. Boeing began moving all Dreamliner final assembly to S. Carolina around 2009 and problems continue to this day with quality. The federal government denied workers the right to unionize there. Final assembly is where all quality issues are supposed to be flushed out. Parts not meeting spec should be rejected not made to fit as is the case in this article.

I think the record is far from clear that a lack of unionized labor necessarily means a drop in quality. It's possible that's a contributing factor for reasons Flixy outlined, but it's not always the case. I was speaking with an engineer a few years back who was recounting a major manufacturing issue she had been trying to troubleshoot - but because she wasn't in the union (being on the engineering team, which is never unionized), she wasn't able to actually physically do the manufacturing to figure out the problem. She had to rely on far from precise information from the (unionized) factory floor about issues and how her proposed solutions were working out - with concomitant quality issues.

I've found that unionized employees can indeed have deep expertise and excellent skills in something, often because organized labor favors long tenures in a job. That's excellent! But I've also found that union rules (and, sometimes, unionized employees) are inflexible and don't allow for the rapid iteration, improvements, and unusual approaches that are required in some complex manufacturing tasks. Don't even get me started on how hard it is to get anything done on off-hours or on short notice.

We can all agree that Boeing is having some manufacturing issues on their 787. I think that it's pretty presumptuous to suggest that any of us know the root causes of those issues.

[GGT]

Being, if you were trying to find an example where a decline in unionization *causes* a decline in quality workmanship, Boeing may not be the best example. Sure, it's a huge multi-national conglomerate, with tons of federal contracts, and thousands of jobs, and safety on the line.

But there's probably more at risk (by scale) from the many thousands of companies that use non-unionized labor, *and by default use lower standards*, for everything from building high-rise condos on the beach to single-family homes in tornado alley.

Anecdote: my son got a job as an electrician's assistant, working for the Electrical Union, re-programming LED light bulbs, changing out bulbs and coiling wire. $30/hour for the first 8 hour shift, $45/hour for anything after 8 hours, $60/hour for any shift over 10 hours. He has no background or special education in electrical engineering, and is basically using his intelligence and wit (and connections to friends in the Union) to do work with huge safety concerns.

The Union just put him on the job without any real training, because they were so short-staffed, and there's no Regulation prohibiting that.