Boeing MAX Shutdown

Bosses Caught in Trap; Workers Must Use Opportunity to Build for Communist Revolution

SEATTLE (USA) January 26 — “All the company is doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” said a Boeing worker during our crew meeting. We’d been discussing how the company is trapped in the global crisis of overproduction. If we let them, the bosses will drag us down with them. Communism is the only way to finally end these crises.

A few days later, the new CEO, Calhoun, confirmed that Boeing was trapped. The New Midmarket Airplane (NMA) was supposed to get the board’s approval last year. The go ahead was delayed because of the MAX crisis. The NMA was a totally new plane, unlike the MAX, which is a derivative of a 1960s design. During a webcast to Boeing employees, the CEO said the company would scrap their planned NMA.

The company will go back to the drawing board. If Boeing went ahead with their plans to produce the NMA now, they would run smack into new competing Chinese and Airbus planes. Any possible innovations won’t come until the end of the decade to take the developing Chinese competition into account.

“Things have changed… We have to plan for China,” Calhoun said.

In heated discussions throughout the plant, some blamed the company for “giving China our technology.” Another worker thought Chinese engineers were good at copying but couldn’t innovate. Our comrades argued that overproduction was bound to happen no matter what.

Capitalism can’t escape overproduction. In this system, the contradiction between the forces of production (factories, workers, etc.) and existing relationships of capitalist private ownership (we’re at the mercy of the bosses’ ability to make profits) leads to one crisis after another.

Only communism will resolve that contradiction by eliminating production for profit. Production will be collective, as will distribution. Money, sales, the drive for profit and even corporations will cease to exist. Technology will be shared to provide for our collective well-being. The working class will organize production logically to create what is needed at any particular time.

Currently the fear of overproduction shapes every decision the bosses make. Last year, Boeing had 87 more cancellations than sales, the lowest order count in decades. Nonetheless, the company is still trying to preserve its workforce. They have to be able to ramp up production as quickly as possible after the MAX is recertified so they are not left behind.

That plan is quickly crumbling as major suppliers layoff thousands. The company has 8,000 subcontractors, in every U.S. state and abroad. These suppliers employ hundreds of thousands.

Even if that plan collapses, it doesn’t mean an end to the bosses. They will always find a way until the working class ends capitalism with a communist revolution. Fascism expands during a global crisis of overproduction. It did in the 1930s and it has now. The potential for war, even world war, increases.

Things Have Changed; Now What to Do About It

Many Boeing workers—particularly those who regularly read Red Flag and socialize with comrades outside of work—are keenly aware that things have changed.

In response to the crisis, hundreds of millions have struck and demonstrated around the world. We’ve seen this kind of heroism before. It can signal the emergence of a revolutionary period.

At our recent ICWP conference, industrial workers wanted to know, “What can we do to win our fellow workers to communism?” Our friends wanted to better understand how communism works so they could struggle effectively with their fellow workers.

These same workers talked about their fears. Like Boeing workers, they fear for their jobs and what the future holds for their children. “There has to be something better than this,” one said.

Foremost, we have to appreciate the potential and opportunities to recruit communist fighters as the crisis intensifies. The opportunities must win out over our fears. Then a communist world will be our future.

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