Machinists cheer ruling overturning Air Force tanker deal
They said it couldn’t happen. The
industry experts and defense analysts
who track the aerospace industry said
there was no way the Government Ac-
counting Office (GAO) would ever
recommend an overhaul of the $35 bil-
lion tanker contract that was awarded
earlier this year to a consortium in-
cluding Northrop Grumman Systems
Corp. and European Airbus Industrie
over Boeing Co.
But the so-called experts were
wrong. Not only did the GAO recom-
mend a new round of bidding, but they
rebuked the Air Force decision to
award the contract to Airbus in blunt
and unequivocal terms.
“Our review of the record led us to
conclude that the Air Force made a
number of significant errors that could
have affected the outcome of what was
a close competition between Boeing
and Northrop Grumman,” the GAO
said. “We therefore sustain Boeing's
protest.”
The 69-page GAO decision was not
made public because it contains pro-
prietary and sensitive information
about the Boeing and Northrop tanker
bids. But the GAO did issue a three-
page summary that found significant
mistakes by the Air Force in seven key
areas. Among the points made in the
GAO report was that the Air Force did
A jubilant crowd gathered at
Machinist Lodge 751’s Hall in
Everett, Washington, June 20
to cheer the release of a GAO
report saying that the process
the Air Force used to award a
multi-million-dollar re-fueling
tanker contract to a foreign
manufacturer was flawed. The
GAO called on the Air Force to
re-bid the contract. After the
initial contract was announced,
the Machinist launched a mas-
sive grass-roots campaign to
build-it-in America
JULY 4, 2008
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
not assess the relative merits of the
tanker proposals in accordance with
the criteria it initially established. The
GAO also cited the Air Force for con-
ducting “misleading and unequal dis-
cussions” with Boeing by informing
Boeing that it had fully satisfied a key
performance objective, but later deter-
mined privately that Boeing had not.
The GAO also concluded the Air
Force miscalculated the life-cycle
costs of Boeing’s tanker, and incor-
rectly concluded that the Northrop
tanker would have lower operating
costs.
“Not only is the Boeing aircraft su-
perior, but we can begin building these
planes right away,” said Machinists
General Vice President Rich Michal-
ski, who urged IAM members and oth-
ers to contact lawmakers and urge that
the contract be awarded to Boeing.
The Machinists represents about
35,000 Boeing employees in Everett,
Portland, Wichita, and elsewhere.
The Society of Profession Engi-
neering Employees in Aerospace rep-
resents 21,000 engineers and technical
workers at Boeing.
(Editor’s Note: The International
Association of Machinists and Aero-
space Workers and Press Associates
Inc. contributed to this report.)
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