In Week 8 you will be researching and writing about Boeing’s 737 Max airliners.

I chose the crashes of Boeing’s airliners for this final assignment of the semester because the case contains many of the elements that have been studied throughout the course. As you read about the crashes and the resultant investigations (both in Congress and by journalists) look for the elements listed below and include at least 3 of them in your write-up. The role of regulations is a required element in the write-ups.

• How airline safety effects both flight crews and passengers (Week 7: Eula Bingham’s “Right to Know Movement”, Week 10: OSH and the environment).
• The consequences of relaxing regulations and transferring regulatory oversight from government t o corporations. This element is required (Week 5: OSH – The act and the agency).
• When alarms sounded by workers with expertise are ignored or hidden and role of whistle blowers in safety (Week 7: Right-to-know).
• Profit as a driver of safety decisions (Week 4: Power, politics and work health and safety and Week 6: The economics of health and safety).
• The responsibility of corporate leaders and decision makers in safety disasters (Week 6: Rosner, “When does a worker’s death become a murder”).
• Safety issues as global issues (Week 11: Work health and safety in the global economy).
• In your summary, please include your own opinion and analysis supported by credible experts and facts.

Getting started

Here is an article (Links to an external site.) that isn’t everything you need to know about the crashes, but will get your started in your research by providing a brief overview of the case. Do not count this article as one of your 3 required sources.

How can you find this information? Here’s an example: When researching the role of deregulation in the Boeing crashes, if you search “Boeing 737 deregulation” many credible articles will come up. Using a source vetting tool will be useful for this task. I use Newsguard (Links to an external site.) which automatically gives a credibility rating for articles.

Don’t spend a lot of space in your paper giving your readers the backstory of the crashes – assume they already know this. Your task is to critically analyse the case using a labor and OSH lens and applying what you have learned in the class.

Submission – there are 2 places to submit your case write-up:

1) submit as an attachment to this assignment so that it can be vetted through the Turnitin program

2) cut-and-paste your write-up in Discussion #4 as your initial post

Requirements:

• The write-up must be a minimum of 750 words. Try not to go over 1,000 words. Your writing will have to be concise and well-organized to make your points in only 750-1,000 words. Include a word count at the end of your paper.
• Submit your own work that is in your words. Your work will be vetted by Turnitin; you will be able to view your Turnitin originality score and modify your paper if the score is low.
• A minimum of 3 credible, relevant sources should be used. All sources should be properly attributed in the body of your paper and cited.

Assignment tips:

• As with the op ed, this is not an assignment that you can churn out in the last hours before the due date. It will take longer than you think it will. I encourage you to begin working on in early in the study week.
• Viewing the Week 11 presentation before starting the assignment is recommended
• Grading of the case write-up (worth 60 points) is included in the Discussion #4 grade; the grading rubric is below.