Labor & Employment Law

Washington State Workers Rally to Keep Tanker Made in America

By admin

In this cross-post, Kathy Cummings, communications director of the Washington State Labor Council, reports on a rally Friday in support of Boeing workers. Boeing is in competition with European-based Airbus for the Air Force?s $35 billion tanker contract.

With as many as 50,000 jobs at stake across the country, members of the Machinists (IAM) and SPEEA/International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 2001 rallied along with Washington State?s congressional delegation and a host of community and business leaders Friday in Everett. We rallied in support of Boeing, as the company turned in their bid for the contract to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of air re-fueling tankers.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told the crowd of more than 200:

Today, the world’s best aerospace workers get the chance to prove to the Pentagon and anyone else who may have forgotten just who it is that builds the best planes in the world.

Tom Wroblewski, president and directing business representative for IAM Lodge 751, paid tribute to the generations of union workers who have built and maintained America’s fleet of refueling tankers since the Eisenhower administration.

 Our workers are capable and ready to start today. Together with the engineers of SPEEA, our partners at Boeing and the supplier chain, we are ready to deliver the finest and most advance technology to our men and women in uniform.

Elected officials, community leaders, business and labor showed their support to ensure this tanker is ?Made in America.? U.S. Reps.  Norm Dicks, Jay Inslee, Jim McDermott and Rick Larsen, all Washington State Democrats, each pledged to back Boeing’s bid through the Air Force award process.

Al Link, secretary-treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, said:

Today’s rally represents the best of the labor movement: union members standing side by side with employers and community members to fight for good family wage jobs right here in America.

SPEEA Vice President Larry Marrell and Executive Director Ray Goforth also spoke at the rally.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on July 12, 2010 (boomark / email).