Mondays and Wednesdays are loud at the vast Boeing factory in Everett, Washington. As the Machinists’ contract campaign heats up, the workforce has been serenading management at lunch with air horns, train horns, and vuvuzelas—plus chants of “Out the Door in ’24.” Forty miles south, in Renton, where workers construct the moneymaking 737, second shift workers have used their meal breaks to blast Bluetooth speakers at top volume with ’90s rap, death metal, ’80s pop, and opera—all simultaneously, said Jon Voss, a 13-year mechanic in the wings building.
The nickel-and-diming of the workers is particularly galling, Haala said, because for Boeing, labor accounts for only 3 to 5 percent of the cost of an airplane.
From my rough searches, these planes cost roughly $250-400 million each.
What is the expensive part you imagine about QC that isn’t labor? I mean sure, you need the occasional destructive test and some fuel and hangar rent but mainly it is people doing the quality control checks.
From my rough searches, these planes cost roughly $250-400 million each.
Presumably a lot of the actual labor costs are hidden in outsourced parts of the build process.
I’d have to figure on airplane parts, 25% of the cost could be on QC alone.
What is the expensive part you imagine about QC that isn’t labor? I mean sure, you need the occasional destructive test and some fuel and hangar rent but mainly it is people doing the quality control checks.
I wasn’t. That’s why I figured 3% is ridiculously low.