IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, left, and Vice President
Robert Thayer welcome Robert Walker, chairman of the
Commission on the Future of the U.S. Aerospce Industry, to
the IAM 2002 Aerospace Conference in Seattle, Washington.

North America Delegates Assemble in Seattle To Fight for Job Security

More than 150 delegates from aerospace sites across the U.S. and Canada traveled to Seattle in May for five days of workshops and meetings with one common theme: maintaining jobs and decent living and working conditions in the new global economy.

“The employers have adopted a conscious corporate strategy: to boost profits by dismantling the North American aerospace industry, job by job,” General Vice President Bob Thayer said in his opening remarks to the IAM”s 2002 Aerospace Conference.

 “This is an industry that was created by public policy and has survived thanks to public policy. This is an industry that has been nurtured by hundreds of billions of public dollars for nearly 100 years. When the corporate chiefs claim a free hand to sell aerospace jobs and technologies to Mexico, China, Japan or Korea, I say “No!”

“The decision to have an aerospace industry was not based on “increasing shareholder value.” It was based on national security and defense. It was based on the recognition that aerospace holds the keys to scientific and industrial breakthroughs.  It was based on the desire to create high-skill, high-value-added, high wage jobs for North American workers and their children, so we could have a better standard of living.”

“That's why we say: “My job, my vote, my union!” he continued. “That’s why we say, “Export Airplanes, Not Jobs!” The future of aerospace is a political matter involving trade and economic policies as well as negotiations. We need to work at the bargaining table and with our elected officials. We need our members to be politically aware and active, to register and to vote. We need to do all these things to build and preserve  a strong domestic aerospace industry,” said Thayer.