UAW supports Boeing protest on USAF tanker contract

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.reliableplant.com/article.asp?pagetitle=UAW%20supports%20Boeing%20protest%20on%20USAF%20tanker%20contract%20&articleid=10972

Author: RP news wires

The award of a $35 billion U.S. Air Force contract to a European-based company is "a bad deal for U.S. taxpayers," United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger said on March 12.

"UAW members fully support Boeing's decision to challenge this award before the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress," Gettelfinger said. "Instead of buying a tested refueling tanker, made in America by American workers, the Air Force is proposing to spend billions of our tax dollars on an untested plane, to be built by a government-subsidized European consortium."

The Air Force announced on February 29 that it would award a contract for a new refueling tanker to a consortium led by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) and Northrup Grumman. The EADS/Northrup Grumman plane will be manufactured in Europe and then "finished" in a facility, not yet constructed, to be located in Huntsville, Ala.

"Why should our tax dollars be used to send jobs to Europe, and then subsidize the construction of a new plant when we've got existing plants and existing workers who can do this job?" said UAW vice president Jimmy Settles, who directs the union's Aerospace Department. "This decision puts 40,000 good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs at risk – but it does not deliver a better product to our military."

FULL story at link.