Overwork is a Killer

Many workers across the nation have complaints about rising expectations and workloads while the wages and benefits offered remain stagnant. One way to combat this is by forming or joining a labor union and fighting management for better treatment. We spoke to one worker looking to do just that.

Meet Jackson Steele, an independent contractor currently working for The Boeing Company. He says that in recent months his workload has grown to unsustainable levels.

“Things have gotten crazy lately,” says Steele. “I was contracted for this job, and I was more than capable, but now they want me to do the work of two or three people.”

Worse yet, rumors have reached Steele that the amount of work he’s expected to perform could be as much as ten employees worth, and experts warn that pushing staff to overperform can lead to mistakes, encourage cutting corners, and degrade a company’s public image, issues that already plague Boeing.

“I can’t keep up with it,” says Steele, “but Boeing says if I can’t do the job to their specifications then they’ll have to cut my pay to bring on extra help or let me go all together. What am I supposed to do?

“I love the implication too,” continues Steele, “that this vocation doesn’t require a high level of skill or competency. They act like any schlub with a gun and a lack of morals can do this, but my work speaks for itself. I came highly recommended to Boeing by the bipartisan committee that hired me for the Epstein job. Do they know how hard it is to make a hit look like a suicide? Or the damn flu!? No. To them recruiting someone to quietly kill an undesirable is no different than hiring someone to clean the lobby bathroom.”

Yes, Jackson Steele is what you might colloquially call a “hitman”, though he’d prefer to be referred to as a “corporate liquidator”, and for a price he’ll assassinate anyone his employer names. Though now that price, it seems to Steele, should be up for negotiation.

Back in March, Steele was contacted by Boeing regarding a whistleblower currently testifying against the massive airplane manufacturer, a job he was all too competent to complete. But then another whistleblower came forward. And another. All told, there could be as many as ten more whistleblowers ready to testify against The Boeing Company, and Steele feels his current pay has not kept up with the demand.

“It’s not just the pay,” says Steele. “I don’t even get any benefits. All my insurance has to come out of pocket. And God forbid I try to take a vacation at the same time someone within the company decides to go to the authorities. Seriously, they expect me to postpone my trip and pop a guy. Do they have any idea how hard it is to find another Airbus flight to Greece at such short notice? And yes, it has to be on an Airbus.”

In order to remedy the situation, Steele has asked to join one of the labor unions that many Boeing employees belong to.

“We understand Mr. Steele’s concerns,” says outgoing Boeing CEO but recently re-elected to the company’s board for some reason Dave Calhoun, “but as an independent contractor, he wouldn’t be eligible. If we did hire him at all, which we didn’t and I never said we did, I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”

But, we ask, as an essential part of your organization, hasn’t he earned the right to, at the very least, be properly compensated for the increased workload and receive some benefits such as insurance and proper paid time off?

“Listen, the Barnett death was a determined to be suicide,” says Calhoun who seems to be answering a different question from habit and not the one we asked, “and that’s coming from the police so, obviously, it’s beyond reproach. That other one? Natural causes, clearly, I don’t know what you’re accusing me of here. And any other whistleblower deaths that have occurred or will soon occur, not that I have any prior knowledge of them, will also be not our doing, and if there’s any suggestion that they are we won’t hesitate to sue you for libel.”

After this interaction we were informed that any other questions had to go through Boeing’s public relations department who, as of the publication of this article, has not returned any of our requests for information.

“Look at that,” says Steele just as we get off the phone with Calhoun, “another one I gotta take care of. I can’t keep up with this.”

Unfortunately for Steele, Calhoun is correct. Contractors who do not file a W2 are not eligible to join a union as specified by The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

 “It’s so wrong that they won’t just classify me as an employee so I can join the union,” says Steele. “I mean, I provide a valuable service for the shareholders. Everytime I make one of their little whistleblowing problems go away, the stock price shoots up. I should be compensated for that! Not to mention that that just motivates them to keep making me do it!”

On behalf of Jackson Steele, we spoke with Jon Holden, president of Boeing's largest union, The International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 751.

“Yes, we’ve been in contact with Mr. Steele,” says Holden, “regarding his wishes to join our union. Only problem is, he’s kind of a corporate linchpin. We’re out here trying to negotiate a seat on the board to save this company from itself and he’s at the beck and call of the C-suite. Seriously, come on guy, we’re fighting for our lives out here! And I mean that literally! Because of Jackson!”

“I understand his reasoning,” says Steele, “not that I agree with it. It’s fine though. Way things are going, I’m sure to get a meeting on the books with him some time soon.”

So what could Jackson Steele, contract killer to the aerospace elite, do in the meantime? Unfortunately, not much. While he always has the right to renegotiate his contract at the time that contract expires, Steele tells us that’s still a bit over a year away. Meanwhile, more whistleblowers are coming forward every day, the IAM is seeking to disrupt corporate malfeasance, and a separate union, The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), has been holding seminars for workers on the rights and procedures regarding whistleblowing. All that means a heavier onus for a working man who feels like he might just break under the pressure of it all.

You may not like what Jackson Steele does for a living and, in all probability, find it quite abhorrent, but in the end you have to admit that everybody deserves the fair wages, reasonable benefits, and the right to organize for better treatment and a seat at the table, even corporate-hired assassins.