From left: Bruce Campbell from the Canadian center for Policy Alternatives; Tom Schlesinger of the Financial Markets Center; and Ed McElroy, American Federation of Teachers president.

Government Policies, Free Trade Deals
and Federal Reserve Steal Manufacturing Jobs

Ed McElroy, President of the American Federation of Teachers, urged delegates to get fully involved in the November election.

“Now, I want to tell you, we have 41 days,” said McElroy. “We should not wake up the day after Election Day in November and look around and say I forgot to ask this person, I didn’t talk to this co-worker, I didn’t talk to this member of my family, I didn’t talk to this neighbor. If we do that, shame on us,”

McElroy called on union members to “organize the organized” and communicate the facts on jobs, pension plans and good healthcare.

NAFTA’s Effects
Free trade agreements are the greatest threat to North American manufacturing jobs. The best-known culprit is NAFTA, but a 1987 Free Trade Agreement between a business-friendly Mulroney government in Canada and the Reagan Administration “was the template for NAFTA and influenced the shape of the global trade deal – The WTO” said Bruce Campbell of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives.

The result is a trade system that destroys living-wage jobs in both countries. “The trade agreements along with tax cuts, public sector cuts, privatization, deregulation and other policies have interacted in mutually enforcing ways to produce pernicious effects for workers,” said Campbell. In Canada, union density has “fallen from 36% to 32% in the trade-exposed manufacturing sector” with “disproportionate closures of unionized plants.”

The Threat of the Fed
Tom Schlesinger of the Financial Markets Center gave delegates an eye-opening look at how the Federal Reserve affects the U.S. economy. “Its decisions about interest rates and financial markets mean the difference between economic growth or recession, a job or a pink slip, manageable debts or crushing burdens, more economic security or less.” Even Fed Governor Gramlich chairs the ATSB which “makes life or death decisions about the airlines.” Schlesinger pointed out that the next president will appoint the successor to current Chairman Alan Greenspan and that choice is “at least as important to working people as a potential Labor Secretary or Supreme Court justice."

GVP Bob Thayer detailed plans for future Blue Ribbon Commissions that would reach far more IAM members

Blue Ribbon Commission

Convention delegates acknowledged the important work of the 2002 Blue Ribbon Commission members who held Town Hall meetings across North America to give IAM members the chance to speak out about their union.

Commission members “listened to hours of comments and brought back the hopes, dreams and aspirations of IAM members in towns large and small,” said General Vice President Robert Thayer, who serves as Commission Chairperson.

Using the input from Commission reports, the IAM has expanded education opportunities at the Winpisinger Center; increased support for Lodge Educators and Communicators; added resources for organizing; made more information available on Vlodge.net and created a Strategic Planning program for District leaders.

Thayer then outlined plans for future Blue Ribbon Commissions that would reach far more IAM members. “We’ve spent a lot of time and resources on the last three Blue Ribbon Commissions because we believe that our members deserve a forum to speak their minds,” said Thayer. In the future, “we will blend the oldest tradition, the Town Hall meeting, with the newest technology, the Internet. By holding periodic web-based Town Hall meetings, “we can dramatically increase the number of members able to participate. We must remember to listen to what our members have to say,” said Thayer. “It’s our duty and it makes this union stronger and greater.”