General Secretary-Treasurer 
Donald E. Wharton

GVP Western Territory
Lee Pearson

GVP Canada 
Dave Ritchie

GVP Midwest Territory
Alex M. Bay

GVP IAM Headquarters 
Robert V. Thayer

GVP Southern Territory 
George Hooper

GVP Eastern Territory 
Warren L. Mart 

GVP Transportation
Robert Roach, Jr.
 
 

IAM Prepares Major Organizing Drive at Boeing
The IAM is prepared to launch a major organizing drive at Boeing involving some 15,000 professional, technical and clerical workers across the Puget Sound region. “More than 60,000 Boeing employees, from coast to coast, are covered by IAM contracts and have won the best wages, benefits, job security and other protections in the aerospace industry. The IAM believes those benefits and protections should be extended to all Boeing employees,” said IP Tom Buffenbarger.

Seattle’s IAM District 751 filed a petition this week with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to represent some 15,000 Boeing “NSP” employees (New Salary Payroll, Pay Codes 2 and 6). The group includes buyers, mail clerks, secretaries, health and safety, and data processing employees.

“Joining the IAM is the best way for an employee to protect their own future,” said IAM Aerospace Coordinator Dick Schneider. “Working together, we can win the kind of benefits and job security other Boeing employees now enjoy.”

Related Links:
Boeing Organizing

A memo circulated by the National Association of Manufacturers urged lobbyists to show up at tax cut rallies wearing blue jeans and hardhats “which our construction and contractor and building groups are working hard to provide,” the Washington Post reported.

“WE DO NEED BODIES—they must be DRESSED DOWN, appear to be REAL WORKER types…we have hard hats for people to wear. Other groups are providing waiter/waitresses, and other types of workers,” the memo added.

“It’s as easy to tell real working Americans from these spiffed-up phonies as it is to tell a real working family tax cut from a golden handshake for the richest taxpayers,” scoffed IP Tom Buffenbarger. 

“Magazines often rank cities on livability,” says IP Tom Buffenbarger who chairs the federation’s State and Local Central Bodies Committee. “They seldom analyze what makes a city livable. To me, the most livable cities are those that have strong, mutually supportive unions, cities where a worker never stands alone. That’s the ultimate goal of the Union Cities campaign.”

Since the campaign kicked off in 1996, 163 central labor councils across the country, both large and small, have signed on and begun alliances with community organizations to increase worker power and give unions a stronger voice against employer abuse of workers’ rights.

Buffenbarger explained that IAM members may nominate their communities for Union Cities status by filling out a simple form available from the AFL-CIO. Nominations can be made online at www.aflcio.org/unioncity. For additional information, call 202-637-5280.