Strike slows Boeing’s march toward improving safety culture

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By Scott Hamilton

Credit: Federal Aviation Administration.

Oct. 7, 2024, © Leeham News: With the strike at Boeing by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 751 nearing its fourth week, progress in improving the safety culture is one of the areas that has slowed.

Boeing initiated a company-wide furlough to stem cash outflow during the strike. Among those laid off were people in the Chief Aerospace Safety Office, The Seattle Times reported on Sept. 19.

[O]ne particular set of nonunion employees were surprised to learn they will be among those subject to the rolling furloughs,” the newspaper reported.

“That’s those in Boeing’s Chief Aerospace Safety Office — responsible for the company’s implementation of Congressional legislation that raised safety standards and setting up a new companywide safety management system.”

The Safety Office was created in 2021 in the fallout from the 2018-19 737 MAX crisis and continuing revelations of shortcomings in safety protocols and quality assurances on assembly lines in Washington State and South Carolina. It’s headed by Mike Delaney, a career Boeing employee.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has come down hard on Boeing to improve its safety culture and quality control.


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The IAM 751 and Boeing in 2019 proposed a safety reporting program called ASAP, which stands for Aviation Safety Action Program. It took three years of negotiations before it was adopted. Two years later, union president Jon Holden said implementation was still in its early stages.

Boeing’s engineer and technicians union, SPEEA, early this year proposed a similar ASAP program, But in April, the union claimed it and Boeing was at an impasse over how the program would work. Negotiations between SPEEA and the company were held by Boeing’s labor relations department, not the Safety Office.

Boeing’s labor negotiators now have the strike to contend with. With the Safety Office employees subject to rolling furloughs, progress on improving the company’s safety culture has slowed. SPEEA’s lead negotiator is now occupied with contract talks at Spirit AeroSystems, a major Boeing supplier. SPEEA also represents the engineers and technicians there.

Rival Airbus has its safety protocols from which Boeing might benefit as an example to follow.

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