Tanker Contract: Corporate Serfdom or Quality Jobs?
 |
||||
|
||||
The governors of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are pushing the U.S. Defense Department to award in 2010 a $35 billion to $40 billion tanker contract to European-owned EADS/Airbus rather than U.S.-based Boeing Corp.
In doing so, Republican Govs. Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal and Bob Riley are seeking to pit worker against worker, North against South, as a ploy to cover what’s really at stake: family-supporting jobs.
See, these governors loooove job creation in their states—as long as those jobs don’t pay much. Or offer affordable health insurance and retirement security. And especially as long as those jobs aren’t union.
If Boeing is awarded the contract for the refueling tanker aircraft, 44,000 family-supporting production jobs will be created across the country. In contrast, the few thousand jobs created under an EADS contract would be low-paid assembly jobs with no union protection.
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.
