First nickel, now cocoa. The commodities world is again being rocked by a short squeeze, Felix writes.

Why it matters: Just as with nickel in 2022, arcane financial contracts are taking on a life of their own and hurting those you'd think the price spike would help — companies that own large amounts of cocoa.

The big picture: The commodities market provides a way for buyers and sellers of cocoa to lock in prices.

• Confectioners and other manufacturers are the natural buyers of cocoa futures: They go long on cocoa.
• Producers of cocoa are the natural sellers. They go short.

Driving the news: As Axios' Deena Zaidi has reported, El Niño has hurt cocoa production in West Africa just as a Ghanaian financial crisis has made it hard for farmers to get the hard currency they need for pesticides. That in turn created further shortfalls due to black pod disease and swollen shoot virus.

• In an efficient market, when production falls, prices rise commensurately — that's just basic supply and demand. But right now, the cocoa market isn't efficient.

What we're reading: Bloomberg's Javier Blas has an excellent explanation of how the current short squeeze works.

• "The last few weeks of daily record highs have more to do with financial factors than fundamentals," he writes.
• When contracts come due, cocoa producers generally have the physical beans necessary to close out their position. What they don't have is the financial liquidity needed to meet margin calls against them as the spot price rises in the short term.
• Eventually, those companies are forced to close out their short positions at a loss — by buying contracts, sending the price even higher, and squeezing the other shorts even further.

The bottom line: Fundamentals caused the cocoa price to rise. Then technical factors took over and caused it to spike.

Boeing's largest union is in contract talks with the beleaguered airplane company for the first time in more than a decade — and it's seizing the moment to push for cultural change, Emily writes.

Why it matters: The negotiations are taking place amid a full-blown corporate crisis, giving the union incredible leverage.

• The International Association of Machinists is taking the opportunity to negotiate beyond standard line items like pay and retirement benefits — it wants a real say in quality and safety standards.

State of play: "It's very important to us that we build a safe, quality airplane," Jon Holden, president of the 32,000-member International Association of Machinists District 751, said earlier this month as talks began.

• The union represents 32,000 workers who assemble airplanes in factories in Washington state.
• This is likely its "first time ever" proposing terms like this, Holden said.

Zoom in: As part of that effort, the union wants a seat on Boeing's board of directors, Holden told the Financial Times this week.

• "With what's going on these days, we are oftentimes the last line of defense," he told the paper. "We have to save this company from itself."
• Union representatives on the board "would serve as a check on the CEO," Leehamnews, a trade publication, wrote in January — urging a board shakeup at the company.

The big picture: Boeing is in need of a culture overhaul. Observers and employees believe a decadeslong focus on financial results over safety is behind the company's current woes.

• "There are issues around the safety culture in Boeing," said FAA administrator Mike Whitaker in a recent interview with NBC. "Their priorities have been on production and not on safety and quality. So, what we really are focused on now is shifting that focus."
• In February, the regulator gave the company 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality and safety issues.

Between the lines: Agreeing to the union's board request could be a step in that direction, says Thomas Kochan, a professor emeritus at M.I.T. Sloan School of Management.

• The only way to truly move the culture is if the workforce, the union, and the company are all working on quality and safety, Kochan tells Axios.

Boeing is the second labor union to try to get a seat on a company's board recently.

Why it matters: As labor's power rises in the U.S., more unions could follow their lead.

The big picture: Unions in the U.S. don't typically get onto company boards; it's more common in Europe. But for a brief moment back in the 1970s and early 1980s, unions and some companies got interested in the practice — as a concession in contract negotiations that was less costly than, say, raising pay.

• Most famously, in 1980, Chrysler gave the president of the United Autoworkers a seat on its board.

Zoom out: More recently, the union representing Starbucks workers pushed for a board seat but withdrew its effort after the company agreed to start contract negotiations.

• For the Boeing union, though, board representation is more than just a negotiating tactic, says Kochan, who's studied the history of union-management relations at Boeing.
• It "is a very serious proposal — not just something they're putting on the table to trade off for something else."

Reality check: Getting a seat at the table doesn't mean getting a say in company operations, Kochan cautions.

• He should know. In the 1970s, Kochan represented the Teamsters Union on two boards in the trucking industry.
• It was clear at the time that the companies really didn't view his presence as anything more than a trade-off for a wage concession, he says. "You couldn't get the companies to be serious about changing the relationship with the workforce and engaging them as real owners or real partners."
• But if there's a real effort on the part of management, "then having board representation can make a difference."