What happened? When they had layoffs, the machinist union rules specified the ones with the least number of years of service got laid off first. This left Boeing with a very unbalanced workforce.
So, the managers kicked the problem down the road and hoped that someone else would take the hit.
> Seems like unions benefit just the insiders and seniors.
Everybody gets old, you know.
Unions implemented this policy because companies were wiping out older workers because they were more expensive in terms of wage and healthcare.
> Employer competition probably does more for that than unions.
Agreed. But the same anti-union people are also against anti-monopoly regulations.
This is essentially what GP is saying. Unions kept the expensive older worker at the expense of firing the younger workers. If the workers they keep are more expensive, then they have to fire proportionally more younger workers to make it up.
It probably would have been prudent to do a long term ROI on those layoffs. Slashing the executive bonus pool may have reduced those layoffs significantly and saved the company far more down the line.
Arguably the older workers are the more-vulnerable section, since they have fewer opportunities (and lifetime) to re-train.
In some, end-of-life organizations, burning people out can be a ... semi-rational decision, but .. it's an end-of-life company...
See also college athletes. A lineman at a top-tier football school in the U.S. ends up with all sorts of chronic injuries, possibly including brain damage. Very few of them make it to the pros. None are supposed to be paid at all except in kind for degrees, room, and board.
This is exactly why I think those football programs should be professionalized. The program should be licensed by the school - logos and all - but completely financially independent. Obviously, the money says otherwise ( football donors are a very significant stream of income ). And you'd quickly develop a "New York Yankees' problem - wealthy programs would have more money.
I have a Son In Law Candidate who is physically arranged like a left offensive tackle. Even in high school, the six hour practices put him off it.
Part of me says that "the love of the game" should be encouraged, but as you note... the costs are substantial. And I think the real money in sports is trading on the player's name, anyway.
I am sure it's a cause of pain for people but somehow, game dev. work being that way seems inevitable. My own exposure to the antediluvian music business ( back in them '80s ) was that it was The Island of the Lost Boys from "Pinocchio".
Well yes, but there are many ownership models that indeed impose top-down orders on the management to implement totally stupid labor decisions.
It's going to sound cliche but younger folks are more attracted to work that looks attractive. Everyone wants to be able to tell others at a party that he works a respectable job for a well-known company. The media doesn't idolize craftsmen and truck drivers as much as tech whizzes, so something drops under the radar.
Despite what conservative propaganda would have you believe, nationalized health care does not preclude private health care on top, and in fact it makes the market for that care much more competitive and reasonable for individuals who seek it.
I remember in the 80s and early 90s it was common for a salaried worker to stay at the same company for decades. Since the 2000s, it appears to be less prevalent.
The solution would appear to be to make conditions good and wages competitive for the newly-trained junior workers to improve retention. However, some industries risk their competitiveness with labor costs above a certain level. I wonder how much of the shortage is due to the intransigence of capital versus true limits for competitive pay. I suspect the former for almost all specialized positions experiencing shortfalls, such as pilots, machinists, CNC operators, and millwrights. For unskilled labor I suspect that the wages cannot climb much higher without harming profits or risking competition from overseas.