Boeing’s labor battle Down Under

Published 9:00 pm Monday, September 5, 2005

Boeing is putting national security at risk by refusing to negotiate with striking engineers, one of Australia’s largest labor unions claimed over the weekend.

A little background on this: Boeing workers do maintenance on the Royal Australian Air Force’s squadrons of F/A-18 fighter/attack jets. A group of 28 engineers working for Boeing wants the company to negotiate a collective agreement with them. Boeing refused, so the engineers walked out back in May. Boeing has brought in replacement workers, and the union now charges that they’ve bungled maintenance on one of the planes.

Key Quote: “The union’s national secretary, Bill Shorten, says the company has locked out the workers and hired new maintenance staff that do not have appropriate training. Mr Shorten argues that as a result, a jet used for pilot training has been damaged.”

Boeing’s response: “Mr Shorten’s claims that an aircraft has been seriously damaged by an unskilled worker as a result of this strike is absolute nonsense.”

Here’s a link to a story about it from the Australian Broadcasting Corp. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1453011.htm And here’s another from The Courier-Mail in Brisbane. http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16489872%255E1702,00.html