[Mb-civic] Outsourcing Our Safety - Harold Meyerson - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Outsourcing Our Safety

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, September 28, 2005; Page A21

Amid the horrific images that flashed across our TV screens during the 
past month, there was one last week that stood out because it was so 
unexpectedly reassuring: that of a supremely competent pilot steering a 
JetBlue airliner with jammed front wheels to a safe landing at Los 
Angeles International Airport.

Since last week's landing, though, we've learned a couple of other 
things that aren't quite so comforting -- for instance, that this was at 
least the seventh time that the front wheels on an Airbus A-320 have 
gotten locked in the wrong position.

More surprising still was the news about JetBlue's long-term maintenance 
of its aircraft. When the planes are inspected for damage and then 
reassembled, the work takes place either in Canada or El Salvador.

El Salvador?

When JetBlue first took to the air in 2000, rather than hire its own 
long-term maintenance department, the company subcontracted that work to 
Air Canada and the Central America-based TACA. It's certainly cheaper: 
According to a Wall Street Journal story last January, the Salvadoran 
mechanics make $300 to $1,000 a month -- far less than their U.S.-based 
counterparts. Roughly one-third of the Salvadoran mechanics have passed 
the exam that qualifies them for the Federal Aviation Administration's 
license, while in the United States, such licenses are required for all 
mechanics employed directly by the airlines.

But such licensed, in-house mechanics are increasingly the exception at 
U.S. airlines. About half of the long-term maintenance on the planes of 
U.S. carriers is outsourced, and much of that work takes place overseas, 
where FAA inspections are a sometime thing. Indeed, the point of this 
story isn't that JetBlue's decisions are in any way exceptional. To the 
contrary, by going abroad for work that would previously have been 
performed at home (and except for maintenance, JetBlue doesn't fly 
outside the United States), and by prioritizing costs over more closely 
inspected maintenance, the airline is an exemplar of 21st-century 
capitalism.

No, the point of this story is that 21st-century capitalism has plunged 
us into a world of great and avoidable risk. For anyone who wants a 
clear understanding of this brave new world economy, check out "End of 
the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation," a new 
book by Barry C. Lynn, a fellow at the New America Foundation and the 
former editor of Global Business magazine. Lynn's work provides a 
painstakingly reported, utterly unpuffy look at the modern, outsourcing 
global corporation and the world it is creating in its own image. Think 
of it as Tom Friedman for grown-ups.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/27/AR2005092701467.html?nav=hcmodule
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