SEARCH
State Fed Leaders: Air Tanker Contract Should Go to Boeing |
|
 |
|
Awarding the $35 billion contract for the Air Force’s refueling tankers to Boeing Co. is the clear choice for “investing in American workers, American knowledge, American security, and America’s future,” the presidents of 10 AFL-CIO state federations say in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The letter, sent last week, urges the Pentagon to consider the impact on the U.S. economy and national security in deciding which company should receive the lucrative Air Force refueling tanker contract.
In September 2008, Gates, who also was George W. Bush’s defense chief, announced he was canceling the competition for the refueling tankers and leaving it to the next administration to decide. Gates said the competition between Boeing Co. and European-based EADS/Northrop Grumman was “too controversial” to be settled during the last four months of the Bush administration.
Awarding the largest single military contract to the EADS-Northrop Grumman partnership would not only be counterproductive to efforts to revive America’s economy, it also would jeopardize the U.S. industrial base and risk our security by giving EADS and all of its foreign suppliers the technological specifications of every military plane that the tankers refuel, the letter says.
If Seattle-based Boeing is awarded the air tanker deal, the contract would support at least 44,000 new and existing jobs in the United States, many of them family-sustaining union jobs, as well as more than 300 suppliers in 40 states, state federation presidents say. But under the EADS contract, only a few thousand lower-paying nonunion jobs would be created.
The letter reads, in part:
Given the current state of the U.S. economy, taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be funding the economic growth of European countries. This money should be invested at home.
The U.S. military and the American citizens it protects should not be put in a position where any foreign government has control over our nation’s military capabilities.
The letter was co-signed by AFL-CIO state leaders Rebekah Friend (Ariz.), John Olsen (Conn.), Michael Carrigan (Ill.), Andy Sanchez (Kansas), Edward Gorman (Maine), Mark Gaffney (Mich.), Hugh McVey (Mo.), Tom Chamberlain (Ore.), Rick Bender (Wash.) and David Newby (Wis.)
Last year during the presidential election, Time magazine reported that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was a “key figure” in the Pentagon’s attempt to complete the tanker deal.
According to the news magazine, McCain wrote letters and pushed the Pentagon to change the bidding process so that EADS’s government subsidies could not be considered when deciding to whom to award the contract. This placed Boeing, which receives no subsidies, at a clear disadvantage and conflicted with U.S. trade policy.
No Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
