Boeing controversy fuels challenge to top Machinist posts
The recent contract concessions at lenging incumbent international presi-
Boeing Co. have motivated a Portland- dent R. Thomas Buffenbarger in the re-
area Machinists Union member to run run election. Maloney, the Gresham
Boeing plant worker, joined
for office in upcoming inter-
Cronk’s slate Jan. 12.
national union elections. Pat
Maloney has been a union
Maloney — a 15-year em-
activist since 1995, when he
ployee at Boeing’s Gresham
supported a union campaign
aircraft parts plant — is seek-
at Precision Castparts. The
ing nominations for general
company fired him in 1997 on
vice president of the Interna-
trumped-up accusations, and
tional Association of Ma-
later paid $100,000 to settle
chinists and Aerospace
Workers (IAM), and is part Pat Maloney of his National Labor Relations
of a slate that’s challenging IAM Lodge 63 is Board case. Maloney went to
the incumbent national lead- running for gen- work at Boeing in 1998 as a
eral VP.
flight control component
ership.
tester, became active in the
IAM held elections in
January 2013 for its top officers. But af- Machinists union, and has served a
ter complaints about election practices, number of offices in Local Lodge 63.
Cronk’s slate includes another mem-
the union is re-doing the election this
year under the supervision of the U.S. ber from Boeing — Jason Redrup, a
Department of Labor (DOL). A DOL union business representative in Puget
investigation found that the election Sound’s District 751.
Cronk and his slate outline their
rules outlined in the IAM constitution
violate a federal law governing union campaign platform at iamreform.org.
The campaign platform doesn’t
elections. Specifically, the DOL found
that IAM didn’t notify members about specifically mention the Boeing con-
nominations, and members didn’t have tract, but Cronk says it was “very badly
a reasonable opportunity to nominate mishandled.”
“They got themselves involved ab-
candidates because some were working
sent any input from the local leader-
during nomination meetings.
The elections complaint was filed by ship, and made commitments to Boe-
one of the 2013 candidates for general ing they couldn’t deliver,” Cronk said.
vice president, longtime United Air- “I wouldn’t have brought that offer to
lines worker Karen Asuncion. In the members.”
In November, members voted by a
do-over election, Asuncion is running
as part of a slate headed by one time 2-to-1 margin to reject a Boeing pro-
railroad worker and longtime IAM posal for an eight-year extension of
staffer Jay Cronk. Cronk worked for the their current contract, which expires
international as coordinator of IAM’s 2016. But Buffenbarger insisted, over
Transportation Division. He is chal- local union objections, that a slightly
JANUARY 17, 2014
improved Boeing offer get a vote. The
revised deal was approved Jan. 3 by 51
percent of Boeing workers, voting at
the end of a holiday break. Under its
terms, Boeing commits to build a next-
generation aircraft in the Puget Sound
in return for workers accepting raises
of just 1 percent every other year, in-
creased out-of-pocket medical costs,
and an end to their pension in 2016, to
be replaced with a 401(k) retirement
savings account that would receive
much less generous funding. The con-
tract runs through 2024.
Maloney said he was already con-
cerned about leadership decisions, but
the Boeing contract in particular made
him decide to run.
“Commercial air manufacturing and
use is in a boom time right now,” Mal-
oney said. “We should never accept
concessionary agreements when the
economy is good.”
Maloney said the new Boeing con-
tract “radically severs the whole soli-
darity process,” and destroys trust be-
tween members and the leadership.
H OW THE V OTE
W ILL T AKE P LACE
Even under DOL supervision,
IAM’s system for electing international
officers is quite complex. It starts Sat-
urday, Jan. 25, when each “local lodge”
will hold special meetings for members
to nominate candidates for endorse-
ment by that local lodge. Meetings will
be at 6-8 a.m. and 6-8 p.m. so members
working every shift can attend. Nomi-
nations will be taken for all of the top
international offices: international pres-
ident, general secretary-treasurer and
the eight U.S. general vice presidents.
[IAM’s Canadian members elect their
own general vice president, and eight
U.S. general vice presidents are elected
at large — and then are assigned to ter-
ritories or divisions by the international
president. In cases where offices re-
ceive the same number of nominations
as seats available, those nominees are
considered to be endorsed by the local
lodge. But where more candidates are
nominated than positions available, the
local lodge then holds “runoff” election
meetings Feb. 8 to determine which
nominees get the endorsement. All can-
didates for international office who re-
ceive the endorsement of more than 25
local lodges then qualify for the na-
tional ballot. The final vote will take
places at the first regularly scheduled
meeting of each local lodge in April.
IAM has over 800 local lodges. At
larger lodges, DOL agents will be pres-
ent to observe the process.
...Machinists narrowly ratify Boeing pact
(From Page 1)
“... the membership deserves the final
say ... I have requested the voting
process be conducted in a manner that
enables the fullest participation of the
membership.”
Buffenbarger didn’t take a position
one way or the other on how to vote,
though his letter emphasized that sev-
eral states had tendered “serious offers
and incentive packages to the com-
pany” and “the timeline for the Puget
Sound area is expiring.”
Wroblewski and the Lodge 751 staff
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
unanimously recommended that mem-
bers reject Boeing’s offer.
Many union members and local
union leaders questioned the timing of
the second vote.
“Our international president forced
this vote under the guise of he wanted
the members to have the final say on it,”
Kelliher told Workers Independnet
News. “Well, if you want the members
to have the final say, don’t pick a day
where you know 25 to 30 percent of
them are not available.”
Kelliher said since Jan. 3 “there’s
been a huge outcry” from members
calling for a third vote so that a true ma-
jority of Machinists members have a
chance to cast ballots. She said several
members have filed complaints with
the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB), and petitions calling for a re-
vote have been circulated to collect sig-
natures to send to the international
union. Rank-and-file workers held a
“Re-Vote Rally” Jan. 9 at the Everett
Union Hall.
“We’re in unchartered ground,” Kel-
liher said.
The vote to surrender a defined pen-
sion plan also spurred some media pun-
dits to predict the end-times for all of
organized labor.
Kelliher disagreed, telling Bloom-
burg News that workers felt powerless
because they were in the middle of a
contract and, therefore, didn’t have
their biggest weapon — the threat of a
strike — to slow Boeing from its de-
mands for concessions.
[Boeing Machinists are working un-
der the terms of a contract that expires
in September 2016. That contact was
“extended” mid-term in 2011, also un-
der threat of relocating jobs to another
state if it wasn’t ratified. The last true
collective bargaining took place in
2008. If allowed to stand, the newly ex-
tended contract won’t expire until
2024.]
Just days before the Jan. 3 contract
vote Boeing unleashed a full-scale me-
dia campaign to support the deal. Press
conferences by politicians pushed Ma-
chinists to accept the deal or else bring
financial ruin to Puget Sound.
“We faced tremendous pressure
from every source imaginable in decid-
ing how to vote,” Wroblewski wrote to
members in a post-election letter.
“Politicians, the media and others who
had no right to get into our business,
were aligned against us and did their
best to influence your vote.”
Kelliher called Boeing’s actions
“corporate extortion that squeezed both
the workers and $8.7 billion in tax con-
cessions from Washington state.”
In a three-day special session in No-
vember, Washington lawmakers granted
Boeing the largest private corporation
tax subsidy in the history of the United
States.
And despite the portayal of workers
giving up their pensions in return for
guaranteed jobs, Kelliher said there is
no real iron-clad jobs guarantee in the
contract.
“For a two-paragraph language giv-
ing us the airplane, the first sentence
says we get the work and the next two
paragraphs give them loopholes to
move it,” she told Workers Independent
News.
Wroblewski said the union’s goal in
coming years will be to fight to ensure
Boeing lives up to its commitment to
its workforce and keeps jobs in Wash-
ington state.
“Our members have spoken and this
is the course we’ll take,” he said.
(Editor’s Note: Boeing employs
about 82,000 workers in Washington.
Last spring its engineers and technical
employees — represented by the Soci-
ety of Professional Engineering Em-
ployees in Aerospace (SPEEA) — rati-
fied contracts that ended defined benefit
pension plans for new hires. In ex-
change they will have 401(k) style sav-
ings plans. Bargaining of those con-
tracts was contentious, with proposals
rejected, threats of a strike, and nearly
a dozen unfair labor practice com-
plaints filed by the union.)
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