Source: Common Dreams
“The manufacturing giant Boeing, under the leadership of new CEO Kelly Ortberg, announced Friday that it will axe roughly 10% of its total workforce in the coming months, a move that drew attention to the company’s massive spending on stock buybacks in recent years. Boeing, which is currently facing a machinist strike, spent an estimated $68 billion on executive-enriching share repurchases and dividends between 2010 and 2019 — spending that critics say refutes the company’s claim that layoffs and inadequate worker compensation are necessary. Les Leopold, executive director of the Labor Institute and author of Wall Street’s War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It, told Common Dreams in an email that ‘Boeing is in trouble because it became a manufacturer of stock buybacks, not just planes.'” (10/12/24)