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Washington State Workers Rally to Keep Tanker Made in America
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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.
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4 Comments
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I wish someone in D.C. would tell me how they would even consider allowing another Country to make anything that is used by our Air Force. When are the people in the U.S.A. going to wake up and realize that we are being consumed by China, Mexico and all the other countries. We, as Americans have not been protected by our politicians since Eisenhower. That is when they started selling us out. As an Independent, I am extremely worried about my great grandchildren. Why are we being forced to pay for Spanish anything? When will Chinese start being forced down our throats?
Airbus? Aren’t they the planes that fall out of the sky all the time?
How many Boeing planes have killed people with mechanical defects?
In light of the current job situation, if the Federal Government allows our Air Force tankers to be foreign made, it should constitute treason doing direct harm to the American people. To out source these jobs would be criminal!
It’s a real shame and very unamerican but I still remember what George W said when he was asked why we was letting all the jobs leave the USA he said that this is good for America. I’m not a real smart man but he must be completely out of his mind to try to convence people on that, what am I missing here.
When people in the USA are not working there not buying or paying taxes, can someone explain this to me?