It goes with the perception of corporate greed. Boeing stocks have shot up, profits are not being shared, and those profits came at a cost of safety, and it isn't as if market share had not still declined against Airbus.
I wouldn't be surprised if a machinist used to be able to go home, proud of the work they have done, and now, it is not so.
And if the culture destroys Boeing and its reputation in the end, the machinists are going to be struggling to find new jobs. "Sorry, we don't want someone who built bad airplanes to work on this other safety critical thing."
The larger economy just doesn’t have enough similar positions to absorb all of the Boeing employees without them having to significantly reskill. Not to mention after you build airplanes going to build most anything else might feel like a downgrade.
Unless you are talking about a very specific period in the last ten years, Boeing's stock has not "shot up". It is barely up over the last decade in a period when the total US market has nearly tripled.
>Boeing stock is worth 4x what it was 15 years ago.
The S&P 500 is worth 5.4x over the same time period. There might have been some enthusiasm back in 2018, but in the past 5 years they've definitely underperformed.
I wouldn't be surprised if a machinist used to be able to go home, proud of the work they have done, and now, it is not so.