Boeing wins right to discriminate

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alonzomourning23

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Australia has granted defense contractor Boeing Co the right to exclude employees at one of its plants from working on sensitive U.S. military projects, if their nationalities do not meet American security requirements.

A three-year exemption from the Anti-Discrimination Act allows Boeing to exclude employees in its New South Wales (NSW) state plant from working on projects that use U.S. technology meant for military operations.

Only Australians and other nationalities approved by the United States will be granted security clearance.

The NSW state government granted the exemption after Boeing and the Australian Defense Industries told the state's Anti-Discrimination Board that without the exemption U.S. contracts would be in jeopardy.

"We had two options -- comply with the condition of the contract and make application for exemption in Australia or surrender those contracts," Boeing's Australian spokesman Ken Morton told Reuters on Tuesday.

Morton said the Australian contracts to supply components to U.S. military aircraft were worth "tens of millions to Boeing".

Boeing-owned Hawker de Havilland Group holds contracts such as the Super Hornet Programme and the C130J-Hercules Program, which design and produce components for U.S. military aircraft.

The Super Hornet aircraft is Washington's front-line jet fighter, while the C130J-Hercules cargo plane is used for U.S. transport operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With operations across Australia, Boeing has also been granted anti-discrimination exemptions in the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland.

Boeing was not aware of how many of its 3,500 Australian workers would be affected as it had not started collecting information. Morton said he did not know which nationalities, apart from Australian, would be granted security clearance.

Boeing in Canada and Britain must also submit nationality lists of workers for U.S. security approval, he said, but added any exemption depended on each country's laws.

Under the Australian exemptions, Boeing can demand citizenship and residency details from workers, but not collect information about a worker's race, color or ethnic origin.

The New South Wales Public Interest Advocacy Center opposed the anti-discrimination exemption, arguing not all contracts fell under the sensitive U.S. requirements.

"Companies can do security checks when dealing with sensitive information. That is where they should be focusing their attention, not on nationality," said Robin Banks, director of the advocacy center.
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http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/05/boeing.security.reut/index.html

The u.s. the driving force behind discrimination? Who woulda thunk it?
 
[quote name='zionoverfire']Good, now if we could only do that in America perhaps we could keep all those damn Canadians out.:bouncy:[/QUOTE]

I'm not canadian ;)
 
Could you explain Australian's Anti-Discrimination Act? I don't quite get what sort of discrimination the exemption is allowing Boeing to do. Defense companies have always screened people's nationalities (along with doing sercurity checks) when they hire people, so it makes sense to me to allow a defense company access to their workers' residency/citizenship information. The article distinguishes between nationality and race, so they still can't discriminate by race.
 
Oh boy, this is evil. Wouldn't it have been great if in the 1970's foreign contractors working on sensitive defense contracts employed East Germans, Czechs, Bulgarians and Soviets?!

Maybe during WW II we could have hired some newly immigrated Germans and Japanese to work on the Manhattan Project, B-29 development all in the name of equality!

Zo, you be dumb as dirt.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']
Zo, you be dumb as dirt.[/QUOTE]

Nice english. Besides, like my opinion or not, I do much more to back it up than you do.
 
You said nothing, NOTHING, as in nada to back this up except "The u.s. the driving force behind discrimination? Who woulda thunk it?".

You know, Austrailia is as much dependent on us for their security as we are for our own security. Same is true of most democracies in the world. Why do you think it is the Europeans were able to spend so much on social programs? Because they depended on us for defense.

Keep crying about OMG TEH U.S. IS EVIL AND DISKRIMINATIN'!1!1!!! National security and discrimination go hand in hand. You can't have projects open to everyone.

Like I said, you be dumb as dirt. Or, since I'm feeling especially playful today you be dumb as dert.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']You said nothing, NOTHING, as in nada to back this up except "The u.s. the driving force behind discrimination? Who woulda thunk it?".

You know, Austrailia is as much dependent on us for their security as we are for our own security. Same is true of most democracies in the world. Why do you think it is the Europeans were able to spend so much on social programs? Because they depended on us for defense.

Keep crying about OMG TEH U.S. IS EVIL AND DISKRIMINATIN'!1!1!!! National security and discrimination go hand in hand. You can't have projects open to everyone.

Like I said, you be dumb as dirt. Or, since I'm feeling especially playful today you be dumb as dert.[/QUOTE]

When there is something to back up then I do so. My point was the u.s. is pushing discriminatory policies on other countries, this article said everything needed to back up that statement. I didn't make any statement that wasn't proven by this article. I don't see why I should back up opinion with opinion, when facts do it even better. It seems like you don't like my opinion, but have done nothing to say that the opinion isn't true, in fact you've argued the opposite.

Though it would be interesting if you could find where I said the u.s. was evil. Also interested to know where I mentioned defence spending in this post as well.
 
I still don't see what's so exceptionally discriminatory about what they are doing. Almost all defense related businesses have requirements on nationalities, and I'm not just talking about American defense companies.
 
[quote name='judyjudyjudy']I still don't see what's so exceptionally discriminatory about what they are doing. Almost all defense related businesses have requirements on nationalities, and I'm not just talking about American defense companies.[/QUOTE]

Whether you find it justified it is clearly discriminatory (I'd like to point out that the title was from the article headline, I didn't think of it on my own). I know it had been done to an extent in the u.s., my point was they are pushing other nations into doing the same. Though I'll have to do some searching on how common this is in other nations, the article suprised me a bit by saying canada and the u.k did similar things.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Every country with a defense industry does the same thing.

Dert, dumb as.[/QUOTE]

So not knowing one thing (not all do it, but the majority may), that wasn't even a part of my argument, makes me a "dumb as"? It seems that happens pretty much in every topic you post......
 
Are alonzo mourning and Pittsburgh the same people? You both seem to enjoy the "post an entire article, make one snide remark about it, then insult/belittle those who dare disagree with you" style of posting.
 
[quote name='ElwoodCuse']Are alonzo mourning and Pittsburgh the same people? You both seem to enjoy the "post an entire article, make one snide remark about it, then insult/belittle those who dare disagree with you" style of posting.[/QUOTE]

Have you even read my posts? I always defend my positions, it's just no one has challenged the premise in this post. And when has an insult even been the reasoning behind my argument?
 
I agree with Pittsburgh on this issue. Sometimes things like this have to do things like this to help insure national security.
 
You could say that it is bad that Boeing is strong-arming Australia into taking sides, by pressuring them to adopt racially discriminatory hiring practices. But, really, in doing business with an American company tied so closely to military defense, the Aussies have already taken sides. I'm sure they don't want their citizens being put at the top of the cue for abductions or other such reprisals in the Middle East, but they couldn't expect to sit on the sidelines and quietly "do business" with *Boeing* ...and maintain any realistic sense of neutrality. And I think neutrality and not bigotry is key, here.
 
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