HARVARD MBA POLLUTES ENVIROMENT

Since a friend brought it up, I have been mulling over the labor relations situation with Boeing Corporations in Seattle, Washington. My friend had been a high-ranking employee of that company for years and retired many years ago. He speaks with pride of his relationship with that company and speaks highly of that company and from all indications as an engineer, he was very proud of their products—passenger aircraft. To outsiders such as me, it appears that he suddenly and markedly changed his attitude. Truth be told, it probably took a long time for his attitude to change. The question is why. What happened to change a dedicated employee in to a skeptic?

From reading newspaper articles and listening to TV broadcasts, I come away confused about the internal affairs of what had been such a huge successful company, from being a benevolent giant, to an enemy of their own workers. The company administration by edict and in concert with various government bodies that has passed laws have all but eliminated the part labor unions play in company affairs. This elimination of labor influence did not happen overnight; it took years starting with Reagan’s firing of air traffic controllers. In addition to internal disruption of labor, company administration has instituted outsourcing, eliminating the number of workers it takes to build an aircraft aimed at and lowering costs. Boeing executives chose to shift the labor to foreign countries where corruption and lack of manufacturing jobs have lowered wages well below a living wage in the United States and prevented the enactment of even the most basic labor laws, such as taking advantage of child labor, and also such things as having worker safety measures. Lack of costly pollution control in these foreign places further lowers manufacturing expenses. Most notable, it also results in inferior products. It is obvious that Boeing is not a unique company in terms of having bottom line administrations—what I refer to as MBA-ism or educated to be greedy.

The efforts of big corporations have changed working government policy in the form of so-called “Free Trade” agreements, written by big corporations and forced by our own government down the throats of quid pro quo foreign dictators made the associations with foreign governments even more profitable for those companies. That has been our government policy since its inception in 1776. I am quick to add that big business dictated our government policy then and still does it now even after Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive moves of the 1890’s. Those who follow this blog site know that I feel our current President has been working very hard against fierce opposition from business to change that negative image our policies have engendered in the world. 

Big changes have happened at home in our states. Instead of our example of greatness causing the world to improve, the opposite has happened. The corruptions, pollution, disregard workers, and high product standards in exchange for profits have gained ground in the United States. Being a resident of North Carolina, I have seen a remarkable and wholesale shift in the tax burden from industry to the people in the state in a matter of just one year. In addition, our state government has also moved the cost of utilities from “industrial giants” to the backs of individual homeowners. Deregulations have opened our environment to gross pollution. In brief, the tragic story of our state economics is a living history of shifting in income disparity. What is alarming is that this shift in government policy has taken place creating a number of “third world states”.

If we analyze what happened in North Carolina together with what has happened at Boeing, we see a not very pretty picture; in fact, we see a very ugly picture when we focus on worker loyalty to the companies that employ them. North Carolina government has done what they have done in the name of job creations. They want to attract companies to the state with low wages, low taxes, and high profits—what they call a business friendly environment. What they don’t say is that it is the worst of environments for the working class; a labor hostile environment. What I just realized from the Boeing story is that outsourcing jobs from Washington State to North Carolina, is that outsourcing is now from state to state and not from country to country. The economic situation has gotten so bad within the United States that one state can treat another state as a third world country. The Republican controlled states represent the third world. By moving a company such as Boeing form Washington to North Carolina, the company is hurting U.S. workers—those who lost their jobs in Washington and those workers they hire in North Carolina. The company has sacrificed any sense of company loyalty for profits; there is a show on TV called America Greed that now defines Boeing. New employees in North Carolina will never develop loyalty to a company that is underpaying them, subjecting them to unsafe working conditions, to lack of job security, and lack of pensions; unhappy workers do not produce quality products.

W. James McNerney, Jr. CEO of Boeing deserves to be in the hall of shame. He deserves a place in the pantheon of company executives and politicians who have shifted the pride of working for a company and doing a good job to a day-to-day wage. The greedy 64-year-old Harvard MBA who is head of this $81.7 billion corporation by working against employees’ best interest has made 174,000 employees in over 70 countries and states within the U.S. disloyal and perhaps ashamed of whet they do. It is notable that he has no aviation company experience in his background before coming to Boeing in 2005; he has no love of aircraft or pride in the jet liners the company produces. America workers built this country on pride of workmanship not “love of money”. Unfortunately, CEO McNerney and Gov. McCrory are not anomalies; the American people do not look at them, as they should as two headed snakes or six legged frogs that result for polluted environments—they are worse; they are MBA’s who pollute the environment.

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