Labor complaint reveals allegations of Boeing retaliation against two workers

A union representing Boeing engineers alleges the plane maker retaliated against two employees who at the time were working on behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration to provide manufacturing oversight.

A union representing Boeing engineers has alleged the plane maker retaliated against two employees who, at the time, were working on behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide manufacturing oversight. The allegations came to light in recent days after the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of one of the two engineers seeking to uncover a report from Boeing’s (BA) internal investigation into the incident which was filed with the FAA. The complaint and a press release issued Tuesday by the union describe how the two workers “insisted the company reevaluate prior engineering work on the 777 and 787 to account for a new FAA advisory” in 2022. SPEEA says Boeing initially pushed back against redoing the work before agreeing to do it, but then allegedly retaliated against the two in their performance reviews. The union says it is trying to appeal a decision not to change the performance evaluation of one of the workers. It said in the press release that “the other (worker) has quit Boeing over the way he was treated.” The complaint, dated April 18, says “these two employees received (identically) downgraded marks on the ‘Performance Values’” part of a performance review after raising their concerns. It goes on to say that one of the employees then “filed a ‘Speak Up Report’ to challenge this apparent retaliation.” Boeing then investigated the incident, but the union says the company would not provide it with a copy of the report.