Does Boeing taking advantage of vulnerable Veterans?

Boeing hires veterans as contractors through local (man for hire companies) rather than hiring them on to the company to avoid having to give them benefits and fair pay. Some of the Vets are kept on as contractors for years and years because of their natural dedication and experience yet never hired by the company.

These retired veterans often live in these areas preyed on by Boeing. The vets own houses and have families in these "local" military areas. They accept less pay because they receive military retirement pay. They stay around for security and of course the roots they have grown in these military communities.

These vets, in my opinion, are being preyed upon by this company simply to avoid having to treat them fairly as true employee's.

What do you think? Is this a fair labor practice? Especially when you consider they are our Nations War Veterans? How many other companies follow this tactic?

My opinion is yes they place there sites at locations where they can expect veterans desperate for work to work under these conditions.

Of course the vets have the option to leave but that often means not having a job or uprooting away from their families and roots.

This is nothing new.

Defence contractors often hire "contract employees" for the duration of a certain contract or project, lay them off when the project is over, then hire them back, sometimes less than a week later, to begin work on the next project.

I used to work security at Lockheed Martin and have seen it happen plenty of times. Some employees are laid off on Monday and return by Wednesday for the next project. They don't even bother to clean out their desk.

It definately is a racket, designed to get out of paying for bennies. They are just working the system and the employees know and resent it. It's a shame they are taking our taxpayer money for defence contracts and then using it to slap our veterans in the face like that.

Don't blame Boeing, blame the union. Last Fall the machinist union went on strike (which in and of itself is offensive. They had good paying jobs and job security at a time when much of the rest of America was slipping into under and unemployment and struggling. Beef #1 with unions- they do not pick their battles wisely.) and it really hurt Boeing. The company ended up seeing their deadline for the new Dreamliner colapse because of the strike and many of the preorders for the plane evaporated with the new deadline, causing the compnay to lose billions. Had the union stayed on the job, the contracts would have been filled inside the deadline and Boeing would have been one of the few companies to weather the recession without much of a hit in capital. As it turned out, thousands were ultimately laid off... all thanks to the greed of the union.

Why would Boeing want to increase the number of union workers by not using as many contract workers as possible? It might be a "nice gesture" towards the veterans, but it sure wouldn't make any sense from a corporate standpoint. Maybe if the workers Boeing has already hadn't proven themselves to be as much of a detriment to the health of the company as they are a benefit, Boeing would have a sensible reason to hire them into the company, though.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Cannot say I disagree with you. So what can be done to bring workers and corporations back together? Maybe the small contract companies should be the ones being awarded the contracts? Maybe the military could offer contract incentives to hire full time veterans rather than sub contracting?

If Boeing is nothing more than a middle man between the government and small contract companies and their work force then Maybe Boeing is not a value added commodity in awarding a contract or are they?

The workers make products, not the company executives, and not stock holders.

Besides that, workers are the customers that keep the factories producing. If you cut the work force to the bone in both people and salary you are killing off your customer base as well...