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TUESDAY, FEB. 20  ▪  Recipients of aerospace tax breaks must respect worker rights -- Labor leaders and aerospace workers urge legislators to promote workplace rights and improve employer-union relations by approving HB 1828, the Aerospace Incentive Accountability Act.
▪  In yesterday's Everett Herald -- Hoping aerospace incentives fly right -- Machinists eye legislation to ensure their interests are protected in the tax incentives provided to land the Boeing 787 plant.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2007
Recipients of aerospace tax breaks must respect worker rights
HB 1828 would require union neutrality to receive $3.2 billion subsidy

OLYMPIA -- Labor leaders and aerospace workers today urged state legislators to promote workplace rights and improve employer-union relations by approving HB 1828, the Aerospace Incentive Accountability Act.  The legislation, heard today in the House Commerce and Labor Committee, would require aerospace companies that are recipients of the $3.2 billion in tax incentives approved in 2003 to remain neutral and allow their employees to choose for themselves whether they want to organize a union.

The Aerospace Incentive Accountability Act addresses concerns that good Boeing jobs are being contracted out to aerospace firms that pay lower wages and offer fewer benefits, while these companies receive a major public subsidy intended to preserve Boeing jobs.  There have been cases where aerospace contractors have aggressively fought their employees' attempts to form unions and violated labor laws intended to protect workers' freedom to choose -- without employer intimidation and coercion -- whether they want a union.

"After being targeted as a union sympathizer, the company assigned a security guard to escort me to and from my tools, which made me feel like a criminal," said Juan Martinez of Goodrich ATS, a Boeing contractor.  "This type of company activity created a dismal work environment and everyone was scared to continue efforts to unionize. The NLRB conducted an investigation and found the company to be guilty of three violations. Goodrich just got a slap on the hand.

"How can you justify my tax dollars going toward companies that treat their workforce like this?" he added.

HB 1828 is sponsored by Rep. Mike Sells (D-Everett) and co-sponsored by 27 State Representatives.  Sen. Margarita Prentice (D-Renton) prime sponsored SB 5700, the Senate version of the Aerospace Incentive Accountability Act, along with 10 State Senate co-sponsors.

Labor leaders reminded legislators that the $3.2 billion in tax breaks granted to aerospace companies in 2003 were intended to create and maintain good jobs in Washington state.

"This unprecedented taxpayer subsidy is worthwhile only if it creates good family-wage jobs where workers' rights are respected," said Rick Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council.  "If this investment is succeeding and producing good jobs as intended, then employers -- with their happy workers -- have nothing to fear from union neutrality."

Critics have said HB 1828 would limit employer's right to free speech. Not so, said Machinists District Lodge 751 President Mark Blondin: "Any aerospace contractor that chooses to actively discourage unionization can still do that (under HB 1828), but they are also choosing to give up a special public subsidy that was never intended to underwrite such anti-worker activity.  They can then pay the same business tax rates that every other business in this state pays."

Charles Bofferding, Executive Director of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace/IFPTE Local 2001, described studies that show unions improve worker productivity. He urged legislators to foster "a positive environment for relationships between companies and unions" by passing HB 1828.

"I believe in the value unions bring," Bofferding testified. "That value is lost when unions and companies fight. That is why this legislation is so important. It prevents the nasty poisoning fight that companies mount to avoid unions in 9 out of 10 campaigns. Companies hire nasty union avoidance consultants who -- regardless of the vote outcome -- poison the well for positive labor/management relations.  And when the campaign is over, the consultants go home leaving the mess behind."

Vicki Harp, a technical worker and SPEEA member at Renton Boeing for 20 years, found a photo of herself at a union rally used in an anti-union campaign in Kansas. Under the photo was the caption: "Do you want these people voting you into a strike situation?"

"I was devastated when I saw it," Hart said of the photo.  "I believed in partnership and working together but that was very hurtful. I never felt the same about going to work."

Toray Composites recently signed a $3 billion contract with Boeing.  Machinists 751 President Blondin described a Toray workplace where workers lacked proper protective equipment and were told to go to the bathroom out the side door of the building during a 12-hour shift because they could not shut off their machines to take a break.  When workers contacted the Machinists to help them organize a union, the company -- which receives the state aerospace tax breaks -- launched an aggressive anti-union campaign, spending more than $209,000 on anti-union consultants in just 42 days.

"Why should our own tax money be used against us in exercising our right to unionize by companies who are responsible for the workplace situation getting that bad in the first place?" asked Toray worker Nathan Shuder.  "It’s like being robbed, and then having the robber using money he stole from you to pay for his lawyer in court."