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FrIday, May 24  2002
 

Heroes Treatment Fund Launched in NYC
IAM President Tom Buffenbarger presented New York’s Mt. Sinai Medical Center with a $20,000 check this week to kick off an IAM-led effort to bring medical and psychological care to workers exposed to toxins and trauma following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

The donation will launch the ‘Everyday Heroes: Rescue and Recovery Workers Fund,’ to be administered by the Mt. Sinai-Irving J. Selikoff Occupational Health Center in New York City. The fund is named for the IAM oral history project telling the stories of union workers involved in rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site.

“We established the fund for any profits from the sale or showing of the ‘Everyday Heroes’ documentary,” said Buffenbarger. “We also hope our contribution will serve as an example for other unions whose members worked the site and were exposed to sky-high levels of vaporized asbestos, lead, and PCB’s.”

 “Already we’ve seen hundreds of workers and volunteers who developed persistent respiratory problems following their exposures at the site,” said Dr. Stephen Levin, medical director at the Mt. Sinai-Selikoff Center. “Your generosity will assure these brave people receive the care they need.”

Machinists Oppose AFL-CIO Dues Surtax
“The AFL-CIO’s program lacked specifics and accountability measures,” said IP Tom Buffenbarger, “so I voted ‘NO.’”

Buffenbarger cast one of two votes against an AFL-CIO proposal to increase political spending by $19 million during the next three years.

“We keep helping candidates who talk a good game, but when they’re in the batters box always wiff the pitches that count. On jobs and trade policies, we need hitters we can rely on.”

Boeing Trades U.S. Jobs for Overseas Sales
Boeing’s $4.4 billion deal with South Korea for 40 F-15 Eagle fighters sounds like a good deal for the IAM members who build the top-line fighter aircraft. But side deals offered by Boeing to close the deal could cost thousands of U.S. jobs and will permanently establish an advanced aircraft manufacturing capability in South Korea.

Under terms of the deal, South Koreans will manufacture components for the F-15’s wings and front fuselages. While Boeing workers in St. Louis will still perform the aircraft’s final assembly, it is estimated this ‘offset’ component will create as many as 30,000 new aerospace jobs… in South Korea.

“Offset deals like this are a kiss of death for communities in this country that built this industry and rely on aerospace jobs for taxes, stability and growth,” said Dick Schneider, IAM Aerospace coordinator.

Taking the offset givaway to even greater heights, Boeing also agreed that South Korean workers will build the same components for future F-15 contracts Boeing signs with other foreign buyers. “This is not global trade,” said Schneider. “This is global treason.

“Our members deserve better, our communities deserve better and our nation deserves better from these runaway corporations that are selling our jobs and our national security in the name of greed.”

Senate Passes Fast Track Bill
With a touch of lip gloss and some artful eye shadow, the Senate adopted a renamed Fast Track trade pact that does little to save U.S. jobs or protect the nation’s rapidly eroding industrial base.

Differences between the Senate bill and the House version must be worked out in conference. The Senate version contains a scattering of worker-friendly provisions that face tough sledding before House conferees.  The Senate version includes a provision that allows Congress to amend any future trade bill that weakens U.S. anti-dumping laws. President Bush threatened a veto if that measure stays in the bill.

Also, the trade proposal extends certain provisions to help workers displaced by the swelling import tide, including some cosmetic changes for limited health insurance benefits. Forty-one Republicans, 24 Democrats and one independent voted for the Senate proposal. Five Republicans joined 25 Democrats in opposition.

The House version passed by a single vote. Fast Track, now called “Trade Promotion Authority,” bars Congress from amending any trade agreements negotiated by the president. It may only approve or disapprove the entire package.

IAM-NFFE Wins $203,797 Back Pay Award
IAM-NFFE Local 225 won a judgment against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for $203,797 in back pay for underpaying minority physicians at the VA Medical Center in Fargo, ND. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division conducted an onsite investigation and found numerous violations, including a pay gap of about $23,000 between minorities and non-minorities in similar jobs. The physicians involved in the settlement are H1-B employees, which means they are not U.S. citizens but have visas to work in the U.S.

The VA, which lost three previous appeals, is appealing the latest decision, too. “They are arguing that they are a federal agency, not an employer,” said Local 225 President, Robert Redding “I have always felt that equal work deserves equal pay. The differences in treatment of minority employees, particularly physicians, at this Veterans Hospital are astounding and not limited to pay inequities.”