Air Force again halts KC-46 deliveries after more debris found

clecos are installed and removed with pliers. fact or fiction, good story anyway. and thanks for your service.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cleco+pliers&t=brave&ia=images

That statement is a complete load of rubbish. No professional aerospace worker, unionized or not would engage in intentionally poor workmanship in hopes of harming the company's management for previous decisions. You are simply spouting off without knowledge or understanding of federal contracting laws and the serious legal (civil and criminal) liabilities that would attach to anyone engaged in purposeful sabotage.

I believe you are suggesting these employees have conspired to committed acts of sabotage. If that is true, it is a violation of the Federal Sabotage Statute.

This is not some local slap on the hands, but a major Felony. And to be honest, one could suggest that as a result of any Federal investigation, it would focus on everyone from the people on the line, to their Supervisors and Managers (who one could infer were responsible for the quality of the work), and acted in concert to sabotage to these aircraft whether knowingly or otherwise.

Or do these line employees work unsupervised without audit?

I don't know who you're referring to, but, I agree on principle; it's common sense that *any group of employees / employers is not 100% reliable, honest and perfect. To think otherwise is simply naive.

As example, mine was a two-man job: A "lead" and a "secondary". The secondary's sole function was to keep the primary focused. When I was the acting Lead I made mistakes, from simple human error to simply being human; taking shortcuts when tired or frustrated. Fortunately most of my crap work was caught by the secondary. But not always...

Between 2013 and 2105, Boeing had received $13.4B in government subsidies from Washington State alone. Within the past decade, the company has received more than $64B in US government subsidies. Boeing has chronically been in violation of WTO rules on subsidies. And don't forget that the technology that went into the 707 was paid for by the USAF for the B-52. Boeing is one of the biggest piggies at the government teat.

Oh, forgot to mention Airbus' A32x NEOs which are pretty darn popular.

The A300 crash in NYC was ruled to have been the result of improper rudder use. In any case, that model aircraft is not almost exclusively used in freight operations. About the only similarity between an A300 and the current generation of Airbus products is the "A3" in their names.

The FOD problems are more likely related to a poor choice of the employees being used to build, weak management with poor relationship skills, and older, highly experienced Boeing employees retiring, leading to skills loss.
This is not a new problem in factories, or when large groups of people are being organised to work together effectively with good morale.
Allied WW2 production was littered with dangerous production errors and a lack of QC.
Toyota Motor Co "took their eye off the ball" in the early 2000's, and paid accordingly, with a substantial drop in Toyota's previously highly-esteemed level of build quality.
Now Toyota have found they have a need to bring back retired engineers to ensure their famous build quality is kept up to the mark.
Some senior Boeing managers need to read "Staying Power" - the book that describes how the Japanese pursuit of attention to detail and perfection, has made them world leaders in manufacturing of virtually every product.
The trouble with Boeing is, it's simply got fat and lazy. It needs Japanese "leanness" installed into it. That's the problem when you're the biggest of the biggest, and you have little competition.