Boeing Accused of Retaliating Against Two Engineers in 2022

Reuters reports that America's Federal Aviation Administration 'is investigating a union's claims that Boeing retaliated against two employees who in 2022 insisted the planemaker re-evaluate prior engineering work on 777 and 787 jets.'

The employees' union 'said the two unidentified engineers were representatives of the FAA, which delegates some of its oversight authority and certification process to Boeing workers.'

The FAA noted on Tuesday that in 2022 it boosted oversight of planemakers by protecting aviation industry employees who perform agency functions from interference by their employers. A December 2021 Senate report found 'FAA's certification process suffers from undue pressure on line engineers and production staff.'

'Boeing can tell Congress and the media all it wants about how retaliation is strictly prohibited,' said SPEEA Director of Strategic Development Rich Plunkett. 'But our union is fighting retaliation cases on a regular basis, and, in this specific case, Boeing is trying to hide information that would shed light on what happened....'

Last week, Boeing quality engineer whistleblower Sam Salehpour, who raised questions about Boeing widebody jets, told senators he was told to 'shut up' when he flagged safety concerns. He has said he was removed from the 787 program and transferred to the 777 jet due to his questions.

Boeing has 'zero tolerance for retaliation,' according a statement quoted by Reuters, in which the company says they 'encourage our employees to speak up when they see an issue. After an extensive review of documentation and interviewing more than a dozen witnesses, our investigators found no evidence of retaliation or interference. We have determined the allegations are unsubstantiated.'

The union's version of the story? 'After nearly six months of debate, the two engineers, with backing from the FAA, prevailed. Boeing re-did the required analysis.'

The two engineers were still Boeing employees, however, and Boeing management was not pleased. When they came up for their next performance reviews, the two engineers received identical negative evaluations... Even after the manager of the two engineers admitted that he had rated them both poorly at the request of the 777 and 787 managers who had been forced to resubmit their work, Boeing refused to change the engineers' performance evaluations.
At this point, one of the engineers left in disgust; the other filed a formal 'Speak Up' complaint with Boeing.

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