Dr. Dobb's Journal February 2002
While it didn't have the punch of the 1997 United Parcel Service labor strike that put 186,000 workers on the picket line, or the pizzazz of the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike with its downtrodden multimillionaires, the Boeing engineers strike of 2000 was nonetheless a milestone in labor history.
To recap: In February 2000, 17,000-plus frustrated Boeing scientists, engineers, and software developers walked off the job for 40 days until management caved in to worker demands. What the engineers got in return for ending the strike were wage increases of 17 percent over three years, signing bonuses to return to work, management's promise not to cut health benefits, a greater voice in company decisions, and company-neutral union elections. What is significant about this job action, however, is that it was the largest strike by white-collar technical professionals in American history.
What brings this story to the surface just now is the publication of "The Boeing Story: Why Engineers Strike," written by Woodruff Imberman and published in the University of Indiana's Business Horizon Journal (http://www.indiana.edu/libcsd/csc/Detailed/64.html). Imberman, who is president of the management consulting firm of Imberman and DeForest (http://www.imbdef.com/), is no stranger to studies such as this; he has written many times about employee-relation issues in a number of industries. In the process of conducting his independent analysis, Imberman learned that the Boeing engineers' strike had little to do with money and a lot to do with technical professionals wanting to do the job they were hired to do.
Historically, Boeing was a company dedicated to technical excellence. Its airplanes were able to go further and faster more efficiently than those of its competitors, and management, which consisted mainly of engineers who had worked their way up the foodchain, stressed engineering excellence above all else. This model worked well until competition from Airbus, the consortium funded by Germany and France, put financial pressures on Boeing like it had never felt before. Consequently, like a lot of other companies in the 1990s, Boeing began "moving from a period where [its] products were defined by their performance to a period where costs are more important," at least according to Boeing CEO Philip Condit. In an effort to stop the bleeding, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, a longtime competitor that was in the throes of its own financial woes, not to mention reeling from a variety of federal criminal indictments. For whatever reasons, the McDonnell Douglas management team that had done such a bang-up job with that company was brought in to lead the "new" Boeing. From slashed R&D budgets to reduced medical benefits, cost cutting became the new corporate mission statement. And in all of the excitement of tying executive bonuses to improved financial performance, management forgot about one thing — the technical staff. In fact, according to Imberman and others, management was so out of touch with the engineering staff that it was totally and completely blindsided by the strike.
All this water-under-the-bridge stuff aside, Imberman's analysis of what motivates technical staffs is of particular interest and relevance here. In a nutshell, Imberman focuses on four areas that are "key to high morale and productivity among such highly skilled professionals as aerospace engineers, scientists, and computer experts." None of these areas should be of any surprise to anyone who has worked in high-tech environments, although they were missed by Boeing executive management who were more focused on cost cutting than technical excellence.
For one thing, technical professionals want to be managed by other technical professionals. This is, says Imberman, the basis for "generating an atmosphere of professionalism and respect." In this regard, technical professionals see themselves as members of a learned society, instead of being merely corporate employees, and they would rather be praised by an engineering supervisor than a nonengineer.
Second, technical professionals are less interested in money per se, than in having salary differentials that acknowledge technical excellence. At Boeing, engineering salaries had fallen behind those in the marketplace, while technician salaries had risen, relatively speaking.
Third, technical professionals want advancement opportunities that are clearly spelled out. Face it, engineering is based on exact science, not vague generalities. As such, engineering attracts individuals who are keen on exactness. Trying to placate the ambitions of technical staff members with generalities didn't work at Boeing and won't work elsewhere.
Finally, technical professionals are motivated by recognition of professional competence. This recognition might involve being given responsibility for project management, peer recognition of excellence, or the opportunity to contribute to the overall good of the company.
Clearly, many of the problems confronting Boeing were unique to Boeing. But at the same time, the lessons learned are applicable to any organization that includes technical staffs. Sure, money is fine, but more often than not, people choose technical vocations because of the opportunity to create and contribute. The new Boeing management, intent on stock prices and executive bonuses, learned this the hard way. Well, let's hope they learned something. The engineers' contract is due to expire in December 2002.
Jonathan Erickson
editor-in-chief
jerickson@ddj.com