July LL 263 Newsletter

IAM Newsletter July 2008

McCain Gets Cold Shoulder in Boeing Country

IAM members in the Pacific Northwest braved wind, rain and cold temperatures to send a heated message to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who played a key role in delivering the $40 billion tanker contract to a European aircraft consortium.

Holding signs that declared “America’s Jobs - America’s Economy - America’s Tanker” and “Taxpayers Want a U.S. Built Tanker,” IAM members from District 751 lined the highway as McCain left Boeing Field for fundraising events in nearby Bellevue, WA.

Lawmakers, taxpayers and Boeing workers are still steaming over the Pentagon’s February 29 decision to award the multi-billion tanker contract to EADS/Airbus instead of Boeing. The decision could impact as many as 44,000 U.S. aircraft and aerospace workers at hundreds of primary and secondary contractors in more than 40 states.

Over the next seven to ten years, the U.S. expects to purchase 179 new tankers, a number that will grow to over 350 in the next two decades. With over 85 percent domestic U.S. content, Boeing’s KC-767 tanker offered more storage for fuel, troops, medical supplies and equipment. The Airbus tanker is larger but also burns 24 percent more fuel while airborne.  It is so large that it cannot land at many critical military bases, reducing its value as a military support asset.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) is currently investigating the bidding procedure that resulted in a major military contract being largely outsourced just as the country slips deeper into recession. A decision is expected soon.

26,000 Share Health Care Horror Stories

An overwhelming 95 percent of workers believe America’s health care system needs fundamental changes or should be completely overhauled, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by the AFL-CIO and Working America.

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/healthcare/survey/

For many families, the astronomical cost of health care is hindering their day-to-day life. One-third of respondents said they are skipping medical care because of the cost, with one-quarter saying they had “serious problems” paying for the care they need. Furthermore, 95 percent of those surveyed said they are concerned about being able to afford health insurance in the coming years.

Concerns about the nation’s health care system are set to have a huge impact in the upcoming presidential election as well. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said health care is a very important voting issue, and 97 percent said they plan to vote in the November elections.

More than 26,000 people took the 2008 AFL-CIO / Working America Health Care for America survey with 7,500 of those sharing their personal stories about the nation’s fundamentally flawed health care system.

Study Finds Job Training Key to Middle Class

With a recession looming and gas prices at record highs, an utter lack of “good jobs” has left a staggering number of working families without the resources to attain a middle class standard of living. The lack of good jobs is especially prevalent among workers without a high school diploma or without specialized job training.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), Movin’ On Up: Reforming America’s Social Contract to Provide a Bridge to the Middle Class found that only one in four people in working families have a “good job”, which is described as a job that contains decent wages, offers employer-sponsored health insurance and offers an employer-sponsored retirement plan. As a result, one in five Americans in working families are lacking the resources and budget to attain a middle class standard of living.

Only four percent of workers without a high school diploma and 14 percent of workers with just a high school diploma have a “good job”, according to CEPR. The lack of good jobs for workers without specialized training reinforces the need for alternate forms of post-secondary education such as apprenticeships, high-tech institutes and community college courses.

In order to increase “good jobs” and accessibility to the middle class, the study stresses the importance strengthening the collective bargaining rights of workers, further increasing the minimum wage and offering greater access to benefits such as paid sick days, paid family and medical leave and paid vacation time.

Bush Flogs Trade Pact With Columbia

Ignoring a blood-soaked record of human rights violations that includes murder, kidnapping and torture of trade union leaders, President George Bush is urging Congress to approve a free trade agreement with Columbia, calling it essential to America’s national security interests.

The bid by the Bush administration to secure yet another free trade deal was immediately attacked by lawmakers, labor leaders and human rights activists across the hemisphere.

“The IAM strongly opposes the U.S. Columbia Free Trade Act (FTA) and will continue to work tirelessly to ensure its defeat,” declared IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. “Forcing consideration of this NAFTA-style trade agreement is especially outrageous given the hundreds of murders that have been committed against trade unionists over the past few years.  Moreover, this trade deal comes at a time when record numbers of U.S. workers are losing their jobs as more and more corporations relocate outside our country.”

The chances for the legislation to win Congressional approval appear slim, with Rep. Mike Michaud (D-ME), co-founder of the House Trade Working Group, declaring the Columbia FTA dead on arrival. “If the Bush administration really believes this agreement is vital to national security interests, it would not send it to certain defeat,” said Michaud. “They would work with Democrats to stop labor leader assassinations and address forced displacement and murder of Afro-Columbians.”

Two Thumbs Up for New IAM Videos


William W. Winpisinger Center Director Chris Wagoner plays a stubborn management representative in a simulated negotiation session with IAM members of Alabama Local 2003.

Two of the IAM’s most important issues are featured in a pair of Machinists News Network (MNN) videos debuting this week on www.goiam.org .

In ‘ Tankers Today, Fighters Tomorrow? ,’ Headquarters GVP Rich Michalski speaks to the annual convention of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO in Philadelphia and hammers home the case for reversing the decision to award a $40 billion tanker contract to Airbus instead of Boeing. “This isn’t just a union issue,” declared Michalski, who criticized the government’s bidding process for never evaluating the long-term employment impact of outsourcing a multi-billion dollar defense contract. Michalski also urged delegates at the convention to contact lawmakers and demand hearings on the tanker contract.

http://www.goiam.org/content.cfm?cID=12737

In ‘ A 'Not So Mock' Negotiations ,’ the bargaining committee from Local 2003 in Daleville, AL, travels to the IAM’s education facility in Southern Maryland for a week of training that included simulated bargaining sessions and mock confrontations with management representatives.

http://www.goiam.org/content.cfm?cID=12734

“This kind of training takes it from the white tower theory to real application,” said IAM Aerospace Coordinator Frank Santos, a seasoned veteran of multiple negotiations who helped guide the mock bargaining sessions. “It’s important for committees to understand what goes on in negotiations, especially if they’ve never been in one. This also helps bond committees.”

In less than three weeks, the novice and veteran members on the Local 2003 committee will be negotiating for real on behalf of 3,100 IAM members employed by Army Fleet Service (AFS), a division of L3 Communications at Ft. Rucker. The training provided new committee members with a taste for the stress, the frustration and the rewards of real negotiations.

“From my negotiating experience, this (training) is as close as you’re going to get to sitting across the table and speaking to the CEO’s,” said District 75 Business Rep. Tony Blevins.

Labor Secretary says Unions a ‘Security Threat'

When truth speaks to power, power frequently refuses to listen. That was the case recently when the Department of Labor (DOL) refused to let union members - actual DOL employees - deliver more than 25,000 letters to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao demanding she stop squashing U.S. workers’ rights.

According to AFGE, when workers attempted to deliver the messages, DOL security stopped them at the entrance, telling them they “had been monitoring the Shame on Elaine website and that [they] would not allow the letters to be delivered to Secretary Chao.” Security also told the workers that "the Union was engaging in subterfuge and undermining the Department's security process" and the “letters posed a security threat to the Department.”

To read more about this and learn how you can help hold Elaine Chao accountable for her anti-worker deeds, go to the American Rights at Work’s Shame on Elaine campaign website by clicking here.

http://shameonelaine.org/

Trade Offsets Threaten U.S. Jobs, National Security

According to a new report by IAM Trade and Globalization Director Owen Herrnstadt, the U.S. government’s failure to develop a coherent policy on trade offsets, a form of outsourcing, has resulted in thousands of lost jobs and the transfer of technological innovation to other countries.  This transfer poses a serious threat to our nation’s security.

“Over the 14-year period 1993-2006, U.S. companies reported over 8,500 transactions, valued at $42 billion, that involved the transfer of production and technology to 42 countries,” says Herrnstadt. “A U.S. government report concludes that over 16,000 jobs were lost each year between 2002 and 2005 due to offset transactions in the defense industry.”

The report, issued as part of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Agenda for Shared Prosperity, points out that demand for such deals is increasing steadily in all regions.

Offsets “can and do assist in the creation of enterprises in other countries, ultimately resulting in greater competition for U.S. companies and their workers,” says Herrnstadt. “At the same time, other countries develop powerful companies that come back to compete fiercely with U.S.-based companies.” Herrnstadt cites the aerospace industry in China as a growing concern.

U.S. policymakers should immediately adopt policies that will enable the United States to aggressively use offsets to its own advantage. Additional measures recommended in the report include: strengthening prohibitions on offsets in all multilateral and bilateral trade agreements; shining a light on current offset transactions in both the defense and commercial industries and creating a meaningful commission to devise an effective policy.

http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp201.html

Gas, Food Prices Advance at Record Pace

With the nation already in the midst of a harsh economic downturn, working families have been battered with even more bad news recently, including record oil and gas prices and a spike in food prices.

Oil prices surged to a record-high $140 a barrel this week, while gas prices, currently averaging $4.01 a gallon, could spike to more than $4.50 within the next month, according to some forecasts. The Energy Department has said that gas prices could get as high as $5 a gallon in the coming months.

Food costs, meanwhile, are rising at their fastest rate in 17 years. U.S. food prices jumped four percent in 2007, according to the Department of Agriculture, which expects prices to rise as much as 4.5 percent this year.

Home foreclosures also continue to plague many working families. Foreclosure filings were reported on 234,685 properties nationwide during March, according to RealityTrac. That is a 5 percent increase from the previous month and a 57 percent increase from the same time last year.

The strain of rising costs on working families have been exasperated by continued job loss. The U.S. lost another 80,000 jobs in March, the largest decline in five years. March’s job numbers mark the third straight month of job loss and pushes job loss for the year over 200,000.

GAO: Bush Violates Federal Law on SCHIP

By limiting individual states’ ability to provide health coverage to moderate-income children, the Bush administration is violating federal law, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last week.

Despite many working families struggling with skyrocketing health care costs, President Bush twice last year vetoed legislation expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

As a result, many state officials have stepped up efforts to provide more children with health insurance. The Bush administration, however, went one step further and blocked states from using money for to cover children whose parents make above 250 percent of the poverty level, which is $44,000 for a family of three.

While the Bush administration will not be forced to rescind their directive, the decision provides much needed support to multiple states looking to expand health insurance to more children and reduces the chances the new policy can be put into effect before Bush leaves office.

IAM Celebrates 120 Years

Machinists marked the 60th anniversary of the IAM, commemorating its founding at a meeting of 19 workers in a railroad pit in Atlanta, GA on May 5, 1888.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers celebrates its 120th anniversary this week. It was on the evening of May 5, 1888 that railroad machinist Tom Talbot held a secret meeting with eighteen fellow machinists in a locomotive engine pit in Atlanta, Georgia. That meeting was the foundation of the IAM.

Unemployment was high in the 1880s and people were still hurting from the ravages of a depression of the 1870s. With 10-hour days, unsafe working conditions and declining wages (journeymen machinists, at $2.00 an hour, were earning about half as much as twenty years earlier), the need for workers to unite and organize was never greater.

First named the Order of United Machinists and Mechanical Engineers of America, Tom Talbot became the union’s first president. With the help of “Boomers,” Machinists organizers who traveled by rail, membership grew to 4,000 in just two years.

New Law Would End Passport Outsourcing

The IAM/National Federation of Federal Employees (IAM/NFFE) is endorsing H.R. 5752, legislation that would end the foreign manufacture of U.S. passports and require the travel and identity documents be manufactured in the United States.

H.R. 5752 was introduced in the House of Representatives after it was revealed that the Government Printing Office (GPO) had outsourced the manufacturing and assembly of the U.S. passport book cover and security components to a company operating in Europe and Thailand.

The news that passport book covers had been outsourced to foreign companies was met with widespread outrage in editorial pages and blogs. A March 28, 2008, Washington Times Editorial stated that the “annals of incompetent federal empire-building have a new entry: the Government Printing Office's e-Passport program.”  The Times called this a “disastrous, almost incomprehensible failure” in passport security, noting that “[t]he assembler and patent-holder, Netherlands-based Smartrac Technology Ltd., ‘divulged in ... October 2007 ... that China had stolen its patented chip technology for e-passport chips’.”  The Times argued that “[b]lank passports are a free ticket to entry into the United States.”

“The off-shoring of this critical government function is absolutely shocking,” said Colin Walle, president of IAM/NFFE Local 1998, a nationwide passport local.  “We go to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the U.S. Passport.  It makes no sense to open a Pandora’s Box of safety concerns by manufacturing passport books and security features in foreign countries.”

Passage of H.R. 5752 would address these concerns by requiring that U.S. passports be manufactured domestically. For more information, visit

http://nffe1998.org/HR5752.htm

Unemployment in Biggest Monthly Spike Since `86

Shrugging off the promised effects of the Bush Administration’s so-called “economic stimulus” program, the U.S. economy stumbled badly in May, with unemployment jumping from 5.0 to 5.5 percent - the biggest monthly rise in more than 20 years. Nervous employers, freshly squeezed by unprecedented energy costs and the deepening credit crisis, cut 50,000 jobs in May, bringing the total number of jobs lost in 2008 to 324,000.

Employers now have cut payrolls for five straight months in manufacturing, construction, retailing, professional and businesses services, leading many economists to conclude the economy is in recession.

The government said the number of unemployed grew by 861,000 in May - rising to 8.5 million. A year ago, the number stood at 6.9 million and the jobless rate was 4.5 percent.

TRADE Law Would Mandate Jobs Review

Looking to put a halt to failed trade agreements such as NAFTA, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Mike Michaud (D-ME) have introduced the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act.

The TRADE Act would stop negotiations on all new trade agreements and mandate a comprehensive review of all past trade agreements, documenting the massive loss of jobs that have occurred. It would also incorporate real and meaningful international labor standards into the core of any trade agreement and create meaningful enforcement for violators of international labor, environmental, and public health standards.

“For too long our nation’s trade policy has exploited workers, betrayed middle class families, and destroyed communities,” said Brown. “It is time for a trade policy that works for everyone, not just a few.”

Click here to send a message to your Senator/ Representative urging them to sign on as a cosponsor of the TRADE Act.

http://capwiz.com/iamaw/issues/alert/?alertid=11512841

Hawker Beechcraft Plans Mexican Assembly Plant

In a move that will send economic shock waves across Kansas for generations, Hawker Beechcraft is planning to build a tip-to-tail aircraft assembly plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. The company expects to move from manufacturing small parts and sub-assemblies to full aircraft assembly after 2012.

The five-year plan, code named Project Pelican, is outlined in documents containing detailed instructions on how the company planned to conceal the scope of the plan from the public, the press and employees at Hawker Beechcraft's Wichita assembly plant.

“Never mention the potential of full aircraft assembly,” is among the covert marching orders for Hawker Beechcraft managers tasked with purchasing land, negotiating tax breaks with the Mexican government and hiring a workforce for as little as $3 an hour.

Instead, managers are instructed to frequently cite global competition and the need for “additional capacity other than Wichita.”

“Hawker Beechcraft shows no recognition of the damage they do to our economy, our industrial base or our national security when they transfer sophisticated technology and production to countries that turn around and compete with U.S.-based companies,” said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. “Thanks to NAFTA and other job-killing trade deals, we’re encountering this phenomenon at every bargaining table in the aerospace industry."

“The real story is what’s going on in Wichita,” said Hawker Beechcraft spokesperson Andrew Broom, in an article published in the Wichita Eagle. Broom did not deny the company’s outsourcing plans.

“Never before did Hawker Beechcraft disclose their intent to build a final assembly line in Mexico,” said IAM Aerospace Coordinator Ron Eldridge, who is engaged in contract negotiations for 4,300 IAM members at Hawker Beechcraft. “This is deceit on a grand scale and will be a huge issue in the workplace and at the bargaining table.”

The IAM represents nearly 20,000 workers at Kansas aerospace and aircraft companies, including Hawker Beechcraft, Cessna, Bombardier, Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing. For additional information about Project Pelican, visit:

www.projectpelican.blogspot.com .    

Thank you for your time,
Craig D. Parks
LL 263 Communicator