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Introduction
Boeing is a multinational company that was established way back in 1916 and is based in the United States of America. It specializes in aerospace and defense industries whereby products are sub-divided according to units. For instance, its products include Space and Security, commercial airplanes, capital, and others just to name but a few. It is one of the largest world plane manufacturers. With approximately more than one hundred and sixty-five thousand employees worldwide in different regions and employment sections, the company has continued to grow and still expanding. Its largest divisions include the capital section, commercial airplanes, and state and security space defense. In the recent past, the company has been participating in numerous political contributions such as the 2008 contribution to Obama’s campaign, the largest contribution ever made by the company (Granstrand 27). On the other hand, it has been listed as one of the largest air pollutants by different researchers. In 2002 alone, the company was among the top fifteen pollutants although, by 2008, the company was no longer visible in the list of top pollutants.
Its commercial airplanes have been ranked as one of the largest world carriers. Besides, the company has successfully launched several other services as part of boosting its profitability and competitiveness. In 2007, it successfully launched 787 delivery service carriers which is an implication of continual expansions and widening of employment opportunities and thus vulnerability to legal cases in employment law, labor, and intellectual property. These vulnerabilities have made the company find itself in court battles, especially against employee suits. Like many other airline companies, Boeing has taken a defensive stand against all its accusations and has also accepted liability by settling matters outside courtrooms.
With operations in America, Asia, Europe, and other regions across the globe, Boeing has been greatly exposed to the challenge of handling employees of different origins such as whites, blacks, Hispanic, Asians, and others. It has therefore experienced racial discrimination within its workplaces despite its strict policy on racial discrimination in its employment rights. For example, in 1999, the company had to pay approximately 15 million dollars for discrimination settlement against its employees of black origin.
Similarly, the company has also faced lawsuits from the labor board due to violation of labor law which makes provisions for administrative actions that address legal restrictions and rights of employees. For instance, in April this year, the Labor Board, through its acting general counsel, threatened to sue the company for violation of labor rights. Then, the board, through its lawyer, forced the company to stop its non-unionized intentions by demanding it to remove its non-unionized plant in the Carolina state to one in Washington state. The company, in its defense, responded that it had initiated the move to stop the rate of strikes by workers that were common experiences in Washington state. In its blame, the board said that the company was retaliating by trying to stop or kill employees’ right to strike and thus the move constituted an illegal action that had to be stopped in good time. Likewise in 2006, the company had to part with approximately 30 million US dollars in a compensational settlement for dispute on environmental pollution to immediate neighbors arising from a space science manufacturing plant. This case had been filed eight years earlier (Rudlin 142).
On the same note, the company has experienced some rights acquisition in regards to the intellectual property which entails protection of intangible assets that are owned by a company. For example, the company made acquisitions such as its patent on the dough-nut-shaped hydrogen fuel tank for use in aircraft and another on noise-reduction construction in airports. These present suitable platforms for legal battles with other companies and thus usher in possibilities of future battles regarding any dough-nut-shaped hydrogen fuel tanks for use in aircraft.
The case against employment law
Although Boeing has spent a lot of money in its campaigns against racial discrimination within its employees, it explicitly requires clarification of employee racial background by elucidation in the application process. Among the racial groups identified include black, Hispanic origin, Asian origin, Native American origin, and subcontinental Asian Americans (Dobbin 148). It however does not show direct recognition of the European origins even though they constitute more than 80% of all employees while Native Americans consist of only 1%. The latter is a clear implication that the company provides room for racial discrimination within its employees and subsequently, the company has hitherto fallen victim to lawsuits against this type of discrimination. For instance, the company faced a lawsuit for discrimination against black employees, and consequently, it announced resettlement of more than 15 million dollars for the case. The case caused a big stir in the company since its employment policy on racial discrimination was acting against rights of individual discrimination in the course of employment and duty discharge. The case, as Dobbin (150) argues which had been filed by the District Court of Washington, demanded that the company pay the lump-sum amount in settlement of the violation of rights against discrimination of black company employees. It opened up room for further investigations into the company’s conduct on business matters. Inquiries into the business handling conduct on matters of tendering and supplies were also racially biased (Dobbin 149). The court ordered an investigation into this behavior to find out if the tendering and supplies by contractors and sub-contractors were correctly owned by the right races and genders. The same court also demanded an inquiry into gender discrimination claims within the company to ascertain its compliance to affirmative action established in the United States of America in 1964.
These caused changes in decision-making within the organization. The change in decision making had to, first of all, cater for racial discrimination provisions and then reach final decisions in regards to employment. This hampered the daily and direct operations of the company since most of the decisions based on employment had to be racial discrimination-free, an implication of new environmental adaptations. Since adaptation causes delays in daily operations due to pace acquisition, Boeing was forced to make financial slowdowns in its economic growth in response to the new changes. New hiring application forms will have to change elucidation of racial backgrounds to avoid future possibilities of such occurrences. Awarding of contracts and tendering services will also have to consider the aspect of racial biases. Strict adherence and review of its policy on racial discrimination are inevitable. Additional funding on campaigns against racial discrimination has taken another astounding amount to reduce such cases from recurring. Furthermore, the company made a special request concerning the hiring of the right number of minorities. The company stated in this regard and made a public apology for not being able to follow the racial discrimination law on employment. This was predicted to have caused its reduction of annual revenues since its exposure to racial discrimination tendencies may have sparked public reaction towards the company on the same note. Its public image in regards to the issue may have been influenced by occurrences in the company and thus the public reaction was diverse, given the racial backgrounds of its employees (Dobbin 154). This indicated negative behavior in handling racial differences and thus caused a reduction in annual revenues since a counter-action by the public might have reduced its clientele base following the case.
Its labor case constituted of the file by Labor Board against Boeing which meant to halt its move on the relocation of its plant from Washington to Carolina. This was an attempt by the company to reduce strikes by its workers. The board, through its top lawyer, filed a lawsuit that tried to stop the company’s move to bar employees from their rights to strike. The company was aiming at a strategic move from a state that recognizes employee rights to that which does not recognize employees’ freedom of striking. By doing so, the company had intended to suppress the rights of its employees contrary to its contractual agreements. This hampered its strategic decision-making since the decision had to be reversed by the court. In its defense, the company strategically responded that it was undertaking expansive plans and not a move of the manufacturing plants.
2.2)
Intellectual property and cases
Intellectual property entails the protection of intangible assets owned by a company which includes copyright, ideas, and trademark that a company intends to use or has already used differently. In this regard, Boeing Company received a patent in 2010 for its idea on how to reduce noise in airports and had acquired another patent in 2006 on using a doughnut-shaped hydrogen fuel container in airplanes (Granstrand 90). These patents have created room for potential controversy regarding the shape and use of dough-nut-shaped hydrogen fuel tanks in airplanes. With the shape of the plane, it is obvious that circular cylinders or other shapes might not be appropriate for use in airplanes by considering the space and shapes of airplanes. As such, other manufacturing and flight service companies in the future will have confrontations and permission seeking on this issue. This might end up in courtrooms challenging patenting of the rights (Granstrand 92).
This has positively influenced the strategic decision-making process such that Boeing will be the only company involved in noise reduction in airports on that patent and thus give an increase in its revenue base. This will create more room for further decision-making strategies influencing the whole manufacturing and flight-service industry when other companies will be struggling to embrace the new noise-reduction strategy. With continual patents on intellectual property to strengthen the implementation of its original ideas, Boeing is likely going to experience enormous growth. This will prove to be highly strategic since permission acquisition and technology transfer will be tactically attributed to Boeing as the pioneer of noise reduction projects and hence increased brand recognition. The latter is automatically associated with revenue increase and thus asset-base increment.
Tort Law
Tort laws involve the breach of public duties in general jurisdiction which makes it slightly less equal to criminal law. However, tort strictly refers to such kind of behavior as a breach of duty while in the course of business, which is done with the intent of reducing or gaining businesswise. Classification of tort includes defamation, negligence, nuisance, individual and statutory torts.
Boeing Company experienced a lawsuit in 2006 concerning immediate environmental pollution which was causing various health risks to immediate inhabitants of Santa Susana Field (Rudlin 138). This tort was filed under negligence by the company to observe the likely hazards of its activities on the environment and people living nearby. This ended with a settlement of 30 million dollars as compensation. Arguably, this case was purely a tort case in nature and presented a valid argument thus ended up settling in court. Had Boeing, as a manufacturing company that emits radioactive materials, been proactive in the prevention of immediate environmental pollution and associated hazards, this kind of lawsuit on negligence would not have occurred. This implied that there was a lack of adequate strategic management and thus insufficient strategic decisions on the manufacturing and disposition of radioactive materials.
More strategically, the company should make sound decisions on the disposal and emission of harmful materials to its immediate environment. Regarding disposal habits and the green economy trend in today’s industrialization, Boeing ought to construct emission trapping barriers such that emissions from the plant do not traverse outside boundaries to cause harm to the immediate environment. This decision will affect the company’s annual budget and also prevent further occurrences of such nature. Therefore, strategic management which results in strategic decisions allows the adoption of preventive measures to be put in place as part of avoiding such legal mishaps in the future.
References
Dobbin, Frank. Inventing equal opportunity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Granstrand, Ove. Economics, law, and intellectual property: seeking strategies for research, Boston; Dordrecht, 2003.
Rudlin, Alan. Toxic tort litigation. Chicago: American Bar Association, 2007.
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