This is the part of every conference where someone like me gets up and tells everyone what they already know. But I don’t think there is anyone here who didn’t learn something, or contribute something, or come away with a better understanding about the challenges and opportunities we’re facing in this industry. Brothers and Sisters, let’s look at the road that lies ahead for our members in the aerospace industry. There’s no shortage of problems out there. Nearly everywhere you turn, companies are trying to turn back the clock on years of collective bargaining progress.
On health-care costs, companies are simply trying to shift the cost to employees, or eliminate health-care benefits altogether. Setting aside the humane dimensions of such a move, they need to learn there are ways to stretch their health-care dollars so that everyone gets a better deal.
It’s up to us to teach them. At the bargaining tables, or on the picket lines, we need to force them to listen.
But the real solution, the real opportunity to make a difference - for all Americans - is with a national health care plan that takes the issue off the bargaining table. We cannot resolve a national problem at the local level. We also need to keep the pressure up on our legislators until they realize they have a greater obligation to us as citizens than they do to the health insurance companies as potential campaign donors.
And what companies are proposing to do to our retirees, indeed to all retired Americans, is absolutely disgraceful. Cutting back on pension benefits is just the first step to eliminating them entirely. Reducing health care benefits is the first step to having none at all. Eliminating a contract provision that relies on seniority is a step closer to no seniority protection at all.
We need to understand that most companies today have placed concepts like ethics and social responsibility into a blind trust. Companies are attempting to cut workers’ pensions while padding their own, and have no problem eliminating health care for retirees without ever facing similar sacrifice, and, in short, robbing from their employees while they gorge themselves like there was no tomorrow. It’s not only bad business; it’s a lack of loyalty to the very workers who produced the products that produced the profits.
In every challenge we face, there is potential opportunity. In no other area is that more true than in organizing. The law hasn’t changed… the law still gives us the right to bargain collectively, and that must be preserved.
We’ve lost nearly 100,000 members to the economic storms of the past five years. And while it has slowed recently, it hasn’t stopped. Quite simply, it is a trend that cannot be allowed to continue.
We’ve taken a hard look and some serious steps toward making radical changes in our approach to organizing. Thanks to the delegates at the 2004 Grand Lodge Convention, we’re going to have the funds to support some serious organizing ventures. And we’re going to insist that money is spent wisely.
The aerospace industry in the U.S. and Canada has seen its share of layoffs and jobs lost to global outsourcing on the alter of cheaper wages, with no benefits, which - bottom line - increases company profits, while razing havoc with workers in foreign countries. And that, Brothers and Sisters, is the definition of corporate greed.
While we have seen some growth in the small and mid-size suppliers, our members rarely make the move to China, India, Turkey, or Mexico with their jobs. Instead, they’re working right here in North America in those small and mid-size, unorganized factories. And those factories are organizing opportunities. We need to find them, and organize them.
No one knows this industry better than you. And it will be up to you to get those organizing leads to your local organizing committees, and assist the committees in organizing.
Next to organizing new members and servicing the ones we already have, few things are more important than protecting our legal right to bargain collectively. And that right is also under attack.
The IAM represents tens-of-thousands of federal workers. In the aftermath of 9-11, Congress passed legislation to allow changes to existing work rules in the name of fighting terrorism. Since then, we have seen the full scope of this administration’s plans for the nation’s public sector workforce.
Starting with the Department of Homeland Security, administration officials unveiled a union-busting campaign that all but eliminated collective bargaining rights. The Department of Defense is also on board, and is proposing similar rules, for its nearly 700,000 civilian employees. We can disagree on lots of things, but we should be straight on one: This country’s federal workers are among the most patriotic and loyal citizens you could find anywhere.
For this government to claim their unions, or their union rights, are in any way an obstacle to our national security, is a flat-out lie, and we should call them on it at every opportunity. There is another reason to be involved in this particular fight. If the government is successful in limiting union rights for federal workers in the name of national security, it will not stop there. Already, it has attempted to invoke its prohibition on union membership for private firms employing airport security workers. It may seem like a small step for the government to expand prohibition on union membership for a small group in the private sector. But the potential implication for all union members is enormous. If such a scenario were to expand un-checked, no single group of workers would be more vulnerable than this nation’s aerospace workers.
So if this doesn’t seem like it’s your fight yet, just wait a few months. In times like these, our progress can be measured by what we preserve, as much as by what we gain. It is absolutely critical to preserve the benefits and the rights that have been passed down to us. They are the tools we need to rebuild our movement. I’m confident we will take full advantage of the opportunities before us. I’m confident you will earn the right to be called Fighting Machinists. And I’m certain, beyond any doubt, that all of you here today will lead the way to a better life for the next generation of IAM members. If we have to win it at the bargaining table, so be it. If we have to win it in Washington or Ottawa, then so be it. And if we have to go out in the streets and win it there, like every generation of Machinists before us, then I say let’s go out there and get it done.
Brothers and Sisters, let’s remember the theme of the Conference - “At the Crossroads of Opportunity, Where Do We take Our Future”. The reports submitted on behalf of each sector have answered that question by recognizing the need for a strategic plan in all of our endeavors… at the bargaining table, in the legislative arena, and in our organizing campaigns.
Your reports indicate you’re committed to every lodge having an Organizing Committee so that every worker in the aerospace industry may have the right to bargain collectively, because, in a free society, there is no substitute for collective bargaining. And your commitment that every local and district lodge have a communications and education representative will be an integral part of your strategic plan.
I think it’s apparent to all that the forced strike by the Boeing Corporation on our members has shown us that a strategic plan is what strengthens the resolve of our members, maximizes our solidarity, and will carry us through this difficult strike. There is no doubt in my mind that all of you have pledged your dedication, commitment, and hard work, and each of us has a renewed sense of purpose in representing our members.
Brothers and Sisters, thank you on behalf of the entire Executive Council for your participation in this Conference, and for your diligence in drafting a successful strategic plan for the future of the aerospace industry. We know it wasn’t easy, but we knew that you would deliver.
We’re confident that you’ll continue to build on what you’ve committed to here. We’re confident you’ll continue to educate and communicate with your members, so that they’ll become as committed and dedicated as you are. You know better than most that being a union member is not a spectator sport.
This International stands with you in getting our message out, and we will stop anyone that stands in the way of full implementation of our goals to achieve collective bargaining for all.
Thank you, Brothers and Sisters. I wish you a safe journey home. God bless you, and God bless the IAM.
