Iron Workers promote ...Machinists taking a stand for all workers
Lee Worley, Jim Pauley
Lee Worley has been appointed ex-
ecutive director of apprenticeship train-
ing for the International Association of
Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Re-
inforcing Iron Workers.
Worley, 48, served as the adminis-
trator of the Portland-based Pacific
Northwest Ironworkers Trusts for the
past two years. Prior to that he was ap-
prenticeship coordinator for Local 29’s
and Local 516’s joint apprenticeship
training committee for 13 years.
A 25-year member of Local 29,
Worley relocated to Washington, D.C.,
earlier this year.
As executive director, Worley will
oversee Iron Worker training programs
nationwide, making sure they are in
compliance with federal and/or state
standards, as well as adhering to the
Ironworkers Apprenticeship Certifica-
tion Program. The IACP was designed
by the international union five years
ago to standardize the quality of train-
ing offered apprentices at every local
nationwide.
Ironworkers on the West Coast have
been in the forefront establishing state-
of-the-art training programs, and Wor-
ley says he will borrow from that suc-
cess as he travels to training programs
across the country.
“I plan to use what we do in the Pa-
cific Northwest as a model for other
programs,” Worley said. “I’ve learned
from some of the best.”
Worley is the son of retired Iron
Worker general secretary (and former
Local 29 business manager) LeRoy
Worley. His uncle, Tom, was business
manager of Local 29 for many years,
and Lee came into the trade under the
tutelage of retired Local 29 apprentice-
ship coordinator Frank Cusma.
Succeeding Worley as administrator
of the Pacific
Northwest Iron-
workers Trusts is
Jim Pauley.
Pauley, 55, had
been re-elected in
December to a
third term as pres-
ident and business
L EE W ORLEY
agent of Local 29.
In accepting the
job as administra-
tor, he had to relin-
quish both posi-
tions.
He is a 32-year
member of Local
29.
In his new job,
Pauley is the col-
J IM P AULEY
lection coordinator
for the trusts. “Ba-
sically, I’m the first line of defense for
collecting unpaid contributions from
contractors,” he said.
Pauley also administers the budgets
of the three apprenticeship training pro-
grams in the Pacific Northwest — Lo-
cal 29 in Portland, Local 86 in Seattle,
and Local 14 in Spokane, and he over-
sees the Drugfree Workplace Program.
(From Page 1)
later, some 3,000 night shift workers
followed suit.
gleaming concrete floors, past giant
doors that part to allow each plane to
exit to an adjoining airstrip for test
flights.
Assembly workers represented by
the Machinists and engineers and techs
represented by the Society of Profes-
sional Engineering Employees in Aero-
space (SPEEA), work round the clock,
seven days a week. Every plane is
shipped out and paid for as soon as it is
done. Orders for the new 787 are piling
up, as the plane is three years behind
schedule.
Machinists District 751 was char-
tered in 1935, the year the National La-
bor Relations Act was passed. The act
made it “the policy of the United States
to encourage the practice and proce-
dure of collective bargaining.” A year
later, the workers got their first contract
with Boeing.
In the decades since, District 751
members improved their wages and
benefits with each contract. Every new
pact came at a cost, however, and three
of the last four settlements were pre-
ceded by strikes. During negotiations,
the union built solidarity with daily
demonstrations on the shop floor. The
4,000 workers on the day shift walked
out and circled the building, chanting
and banging makeshift drums fash-
ioned from plastic water coolers. Hours
J OBS MOVED OUT OF THE COUNTRY
In the mid-1990s, the Machinists
won language that requires Boeing to
notify them when it plans to “offload”
— outsource work — a trend that has
accelerated in the last 10 years. The
new 787 represents the ultimate out-
come of those decisions: sections of the
plane are produced in far-flung places,
then flown to the Everett plant to be as-
sembled.
Portions of the forward fuselage are
made in Japan, the cargo doors come
from Sweden and the center fuselage is
manufactured in Italy. Landing gear is
shipped in from the United Kingdom
while part of the wing is produced in
Australia. Workers say outsourcing is
one reason the new plane is three years
behind schedule.
They also blame the management of
Boeing, which was taken over by Mc-
Donnell Douglas in 1997. That’s when
the tenor of the company changed —
and executives started viewing workers
not as partners but as “competition.”
“It’s frustrating,” said Swank.
The company’s plan to move 787
assembly to South Carolina could be
overturned by the NLRB, but that
won’t be the end of the struggle, said
Jason Redrup, president of Local A of
District 751.
“They [Boeing executives] have no
commitment to South Carolina,” he
said. Even though the first plane is yet
to be built in that state, the company al-
ready is talking about moving work
from there to Italy or Japan, he said.
S TANDING UP FOR ALL WORKERS
Swank and Redrup believe their
struggle to maintain good jobs in
Washington state will have a ripple ef-
fect far beyond their own workplaces
and communities.
“It’s all about jobs, about good-pay-
ing jobs,” Redrup said. “It’s part of the
message we send to the rest of the
country. We’ll stand up for you.”
Whatever the outcome of the NLRB
case, District 751 is not about to back
away from its history of militant action,
said Ed Lutgen, who coordinates the
work of the district’s hundreds of union
stewards. Statues erected outside the
union hall after the 1995 strike portray
a family on the picket line, holding
signs and gathered around a fire barrel.
The hall is located across the street
from an assembly plant exit. “All of the
customers that come to pick up air-
planes see the sculpture,” Lutgen said.
“All the workers, union and nonunion,
see it ... It sends a message.”
(Editor’s Note: Barb Kucera edits
Workday Minnesota, a website of labor
news and resources based in Min-
neapolis.)
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OCTOBER 7, 2011