[nickik]

That is pure speculation. Seems to me the far more simple explanation is that Washington is the traditional home that had decades of buildup and engineering and tightly integrated. Not to mention massive amounts of engineering talent in the region.

While the South Carolina plant was probably set up in a place with far less history, far less integration with engineering, far less historical knowledge and far less engineering talent in the area.

And quite likely a much smaller overall labor pool willing to move there.

[piva00]

There are reports about the SC plant making the 787 from Al Jazeera [1] where they investigate exactly that. And the unionisation helps a lot in the Washington plant to allow employees to speak up with no fear of reprimands.

I do believe being unionised impacts a lot the work environment psychological safety, allowing employees of the plant to halt production if they don't think work is being performed up to their standards, in NC there is no such provision and the employees themselves are caught on video stating "I wouldn't fly on a plane made here".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

[nickik]

Many of these issues are not directly related to unions. Its a question of company culture if they want that sort of feedback.

I was simply point out what to me seem clearly the most reasonable explanation. If tomorrow there was a union in the SC plant and no longer one in Washington I at least would still pick the Washington built plan every time.

And again, its a totally different question if union in SC would help. They might well improve quality, I still would much rather fly the Washington plane even if they had unions.

[yourapostasy]

> That is pure speculation.

To not acknowledge the outsized effects of power dynamics in human hierarchies limits your analysis' scope IMHO. In some of my more dysfunctional clients, I've had to assiduously work to gain the trust of junior engineers to speak candidly to me so I could get the information I need to build my deliverables.

[nickik]

I didn't 'not acknowledge' anything. I simply pointed out what to me seems to be the most reasonable explanation.

I didn't present a complete analysis of the problem. And even if you do take into account 'power dynamics' to jump from that to 'therefore union' would not be correct. Company culture on how errors get handled is likely more important.

A Union worker might be safer from being fired, but that doesn't mean is actually listen to when he speaks up. A company with a strong union culture of workers vs might be separable exactly that.

To me this feel like point to the issue that you like. I'm simply saying that the the better explanation is that one place is the historic home of the company the other is a cheap manufacturing location.

Consider if SpaceX started producing rocket and rocket engine in South Carolina. Would you not consider it likely that the quality there would be worse then in Hawthorne? SpaceX employs are not unionized.

Now on the other hand, what if you had the workers in Hawthorne be non unionized and those in South Carolina be unionized. Would you expect the quality of the rockets/engines from South Carolina to be higher?

I certainty wouldn't bet on that. I much rather have non-unionized workers at a historic company head quarters where the whole engineering sits in a region with likely a 10x higher density of engineering talent and a 10x higher approval as a relocation destination then a far away manufacturing center selected for cheap land and labor.

The same goes for Boeing as well. If you told me I had to make 10000 flights in plane built by the unionized workers from South Carolina and the now no longer unionized workers in Washington. I would still pick the Washington plane every single time.

This is totally outside of if it would be a good idea for the South Catalina workers to unitized and if that might have a improved effect on quality. I think that reasonable argument, but to me its a far smaller factor.