WinnCad Elements Blog: Union to protest Mexico outsourcing conference

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Union to protest Mexico outsourcing conference

SEATTLE — Machinists Union District Lodge 751 is calling on organizers to cancel an upcoming conference designed to encourage Washington state aerospace companies to relocate to Mexico.
If they do not, the union stands ready to protest outside both the conference and all Seattle-area companies that have committed to take part in it – including the Boeing Co., said union District President Tom Wroblewski.

“Our union is committed to growing Washington aerospace, not standing back and watching as it gets picked apart by foreign interests,” Wroblewski said. “We’re not going to let anyone come into our backyard and poach some of our state’s best-paying, high-skill manufacturing jobs.”

The Mexico Aerospace Industry Conference is scheduled for Dec. 2 at the Hilton Hotel at SeaTac. The event is being organized by MexicoNow magazine. The event’s website touts Mexico as “the next frontier” for the global aerospace industry, and promises that Washington state aerospace companies that attend the conference will get to “interact with Mexico’s aerospace products plant managers.”

The event is similar in concept to two conferences that have been proposed in Wichita, Kan., over the past year. Both were canceled after Machinists Union members there threatened widespread protests.

Boeing’s regional director for business development and global strategy in the Americas is among the scheduled speakers for the Seattle conference. So is a senior vice president from GE Commercial Finance and an executive director from commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.
All three businesses have local offices, which the union will protest in front of if the conference goes on as scheduled, Wroblewski said.

“America needs jobs, and not just any jobs,” he said. “Good-paying aerospace manufacturing jobs are vital, if this nation is ever to recover from this economic crisis. That’s why we’ve fought so hard for the Boeing tanker deal, and that’s why we’re just saying no to Mexico.”

Originally formed in Seattle in 1935 to represent hourly workers at Boeing, District 751 now represents 25,500 working men and women at 42 employers across Washington, Oregon and California.