IAM Demands Fair Share of Profits, Job Security

It’s a major contract year and IAM members are facing an aerospace industry so flush with cash it’s “an embarrassment of riches.”

Exactly how rich is the industry right now? Let’s look at the bottom line: their net profits –– the money they made, free and clear, after paying taxes and all expenses.

The record shows U.S. aerospace companies made more money in the past six years ($48.3 billion) than they made in the previous 13 years combined, according to the Aerospace Industry Association.

“All product sectors experienced growth in 2001, from military planes and satellites to commercial jet engines”, AIA reported. “This marks the sixth straight year that the industry has earned profits in excess of $7 billion,” the association observed.

Now the employers must explain at the bargaining table why they eliminated nearly half the jobs in the industry during the same period their profits nearly doubled.

The figures tell an ugly tale. Industry profits shot up 94 percent since 1990 (from $4.5 billion to $8.7 billion) while aerospace production jobs dropped 40 percent (from 430,000 to only 259,000 last year).

Industry apologists argue that business is tailing off, predicting total sales will fall to $144 billion next year. That “fall” would still produce the fifth-best year in industry  history.



IAM members at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft kicked off the latest round of aerospace contracts with an 11-day strike that won tougher job security protections and other improvements from the Connecticut-based jet engine company.

IAM Members Fight For Job Security
Connecticut Machinists at Pratt & Whitney jet engines took the fight for Job Security head on in December, with a successful 11-day strike that won some of the toughest job protections anywhere.

Pratt & Whitney had eliminated 67 percent of the union jobs in Connecticut during the past 10 years, violating the contract so brazenly a federal judge had to order the return of work to IAM-represented shops.

IAM District 91 launched the forward-looking “Grow Connecticut” campaign to build broad public support for the creation and preservation of good paying jobs.

The campaign –– and the strike –– won sympathetic media coverage and the backing of high-ranking state officials, as well as the general public.

“We won a mandatory six-months notice before Pratt can move any work for any reason. We won a joint committee to examine and bring back out-sourced work. We held onto the contract provisions the judge used to order the return of work, and we won guarantees that Pratt will build the F119 jet engine in Connecticut. This was a solid victory,” said IAM Aerospace Coordinator Gary Allen.

Some 7,200 Lockheed Martin Machinists are also in a major fight for jobs, with contracts expiring March 1 in Georgia, California and other locations. The company has eliminated nearly one-third of its IAM jobs in the past four years.

“The Incredible Shrinking Workforce!” proclaims one union handbill. “We win the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter, the biggest military contract in history, plus we win the F-22. Yet we are told more jobs will go out the door.”

Lockheed Martin has already announced that non-union Northrup Grumman will perform 38 percent of the work on the JSF. British Aerospace will perform 10 percent, leaving Lockheed Martin with only 52 percent, mainly assembly work.

Still, Lockheed Martin is seeking additional foreign partners to share work on the taxpayer-financed Joint Strike Fighter.

The biggest contract in IAM aerospace expires September 1 at Boeing locations in Washington, Kansas and Oregon.

Currently, 27,350 members are covered by the IAM-Boeing contract. It covered 46,000 members as recently as 1999.

“There are many big issues we need to address at Boeing –– wages, health insurance and improvements to the pension plan,” said Aerospace Coordinator Dick Schneider.

“But Job Security is the bottom line for all these issues.

“Boeing is planning the all-new Sonic Cruiser, an airplane they predict will revolutionize commercial aviation,” Schneider continued. “But will Boeing’s union work force build that revolutionary airplane? Will it even be built in America at all?

“This contract could mark a major turning point for America’s industrial future,” he said.

In contracts with Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other locations this year, members will demand respect from an industry flush with profits but rushing to eliminate jobs.

IAM members at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft kicked off the latest round of aerospace   contracts with an 11-day strike that won tougher job security protections and other improvements from the Connecticut-based jet engine company.