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.
Is U.S. Air Force Flying Cover for EADS in Tanker Fight?
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With 50,000 jobs at stake in the $35 billion contract battle over a new generation of in-flight refueling tankers, the U.S. Air Force “seems determined to help European businesses rather than our own,” says John Wolcott, editor of the Snohomish County Business Journal.
Wolcott is the latest voice to weigh in about the long and controversial fight that has pitted U.S-owned Boeing with “50 years of experience in producing aerial tankers” against the French-based, European consortium, EADS/Airbus.
The stakes are high. Granting the contract to Boeing would create at least 50,000 family-supporting jobs, save taxpayer dollars and protect fair trade laws.
Tanker Contract Would Create 44,000 Jobs in United States
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Remember the efforts by the Bush administration last year to tilt the competitive bid process in favor of giving a $35 billion contract to Airbus over Boeing?
Only after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld Boeing’s protest of the Air Force’s decision to award the contract to EADS/Airbus and Northrop Grumman did Defense Secretary Robert Gates cancel the competition for the Air Force’s refueling tankers.
John Olsen, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, alerts us that the issue is back. In an op-ed in the Hartford Courant, Olsen points out that the French use billions of illegal subsidies to low-bid their contract proposal—and the Obama administration should insist the total value of any such Airbus subsidies are taken into account in the bidding to build the new tanker.
