'What Are The Costs Associated With The People Part Of Your Plan?': Butler Questions Boeing's CEO

last year

At today's Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) grilled Boeing CEO David Calhoun about safety issues.

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Transcript

00:00Senator Butler. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to you and a ranking member for

00:08today's hearing. To the families who are here today, thank you for continuing to

00:16keep the legacy of your family strong and present, raising their voices at a

00:25time when there's so much attention being paid. You have not

00:31been, you've not relented one bit, even when you thought no one was

00:36listening. Thank you for staying on the case and for being here. Mr. Calhoun and

00:43Mr. McKenzie, thank you for your presence. I want to turn to your, the report to the

00:51FAA, Mr. Calhoun, the plan of action moving forward. There's not been a great

00:58deal of detail of that plan shared, but in your comments and testimony to the

01:05committee today, you highlight the, you say, I quote, it's our people who are our

01:13greatest strengths. I think any executive, CEO, person who's run a business, a

01:20small organization, knows that it fundamentally is the people who make the

01:26company strong. My colleague, Senator Hawley, was talking about you, how well

01:33you compensate. The chairman raised issues, concerns about are the people of

01:40your company seeing any accountability for behaviors that have led to us being

01:47in this place. You said yourself that the people who you tasked with

01:52responding to the information requests from this committee are sitting in this

01:58room, but I think you would agree that they have failed in representing the

02:03greatness of this American company. So let's, I want to understand what is the

02:12plan relative to the people moving forward. There's a lot of words about

02:18training, there's a lot of words about, I tried to capture it as precisely as I

02:26could, better work instruction adherence. It implies that the workers are not

02:33adhering to the instruction and or training that you are currently

02:38providing. So I want to dig a little bit into understanding the specifics of the

02:44plan that you've offered to the FAA, to the American people, and to these

02:48families who are here about how it is that you are going to advance this

02:55plan relative to the important people that keep this company strong. Let me ask

03:01just a very specific question. What are the costs associated with the people,

03:08part of your plan?

03:11Depends on what aspect of it, but if it's in the training arena it's well over a

03:16billion dollars. And Senator, a large part of the training needs relate to Senator

03:25Johnson's question with respect to turnover and the number of newer people

03:29that we have. In our stand downs with all of our people, and I always believe and

03:35I'm sure and certain that the best ideas will come from them. They gave us lots of

03:41great ideas on how they would train all the new people, how they would do most of

03:47that training on the job as opposed to the classroom. We dedicated many, many,

03:53many more hours to that training. We created... I read it, it's about 300

03:59additional hours that were dedicated to the... We created a proficiency

04:04metric, not as a pay item, but simply recognition that from the senior

04:10folks, that the junior folks are now proficient at the task and the job that

04:16they have. They know where the drawings are, they know the steps required to

04:19follow each of those drawings, and they don't need to have somebody next to them

04:23while they do it. So of all the issues that we heard for all of

04:29those people and 30,000 ideas, most, most focused on training. So it's a billion

04:34about? Yes, something north of a billion. North of a billion dollars dedicated to the

04:41implementation of the plan moving forward relative to people. Are those costs, are

04:48those dollars actually going to be dollars dedicated, going to into the

04:52pockets of Boeing workers around the world? It will pay for all of the time

04:58and training that they get. It's a, it's not a compensation. This is an investment

05:05the company will make to take people off of an airplane job and make sure that we

05:10train them to be ready to do the airplane job. So they're not going to be

05:13compensated for the additional training? Well they get paid for every hour they're

05:17there, yes. But now we have a, you have a more, a more highly skilled worker. Yes.

05:25Theoretically. Yeah. And there is not additional, in this plan. They can proceed within the, like in the Puget

05:31Sound, along the Union. The more skills they accumulate, the better they'll get

05:35paid. So answer to that is yes. So and, and that's within the billion dollars? No,

05:40that's a, no, no. So that's what I'm trying to understand. That would be straight compensation. Right. So I, I want to, I really want to understand. I don't have the

05:47aggregate number for that. Yeah. I'm happy to provide that at least with respect to the plan. I would, I

05:52would really like to understand, because I think the, if we're, if what you have

05:56said is, and what the, and the plan that you have moving forward, is that there,

06:01there's, that we need a more highly skilled workforce. I would assume that

06:06that would mean a better compensated workforce that is now more highly

06:12skilled. And so I want to make sure that, that I understand that, that in particular,

06:18the, we're running out of time quickly. I want to pick up on a conversation that a

06:22couple of my colleagues have started out, and in this notion of culture. And, you

06:29know, culture is incredibly important for it to last. It's really got to be

06:34something that is sticky. The chair asked about the, the number of workers that

06:39have been, or employees, managers, leaders, that have been,

06:45face discipline for retaliation. What I would like to understand, and would

06:51love to get just a quick response from you about, is how do you, how do you plan

06:56to increase confidence in these new policies, and the culture that you want

07:00your people, your greatest asset, to believe in, if there, if there's no

07:06visible consequences for the behavior that is allegedly disallowed? Again, with

07:16respect to how to motivate our, our teams, the most important. Well, I'm sure you

07:23believe that they're motivated, because they're producing product. So, so it's not,

07:27I'm not suggesting that they're not motivated. What I want, and I think what

07:31you want, is to have them to believe, trust that they, and to trust that your

07:36leadership is going to keep the traveling public safe, and is going to

07:40help them build a solid future for their family. Why should they trust you? Well,

07:47first, we, we do celebrate people who give us information that helps our operation,

07:53and even if it doesn't, we celebrate their willingness to speak up, and we do

07:58it, we do it publicly, and we survey the results. Do you trust the system? And we

08:03get better, and better, and better feedback on that, and we have ways to go,

08:08and we have to keep working on that one. And yes, maybe there's a better way to

08:13communicate the disciplinary actions that we take. I am sensitive to the

08:18people who we take those disciplinary actions against. I, I think it's highly

08:23likely that in the immediate workspace, around wherever, or whatever happened in

08:28those instances, there's a high level of awareness.

'What Are The Costs Associated With The People Part Of Your Plan?': Butler Questions Boeing's CEO

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