7/1/2010
Congress and Session: 111-2
Jobs remain the most important issue in the economy. While the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 helped mitigate the catastrophic effects of the current economic downturn, more must be done. Unemployment still stands at over 9%. Reckless financial sector actions brought our economy to the brink of a full melt down, but millions of unemployed brothers and sisters still pay the price. In CWA we lost over 60,000 members last year with job loss seen across all sectors. There are several steps that Congress can take on important legislation that would help protect CWA members’ jobs and create even more jobs.
Local Jobs for America Act
In the House, Representative George Miller of California has answered the call with HR 4812, Local Jobs for America Act. The Senate companion, S 3500, was introduced in the Senate by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Al Franken (D-MN), and Mark Begich (D-AK). If passed, this critical legislation will put a million people to work by restoring public services.
The Local Jobs for America Act would authorize $75 billion in temporary funds over the next two years to local communities. The legislation would allocate grants directly to eligible local communities and nonprofit community organizations to retain services and create new jobs. It is estimated that the bill quickly would create or save up to a million jobs in both the public and private sectors and help restore access to vital services on which families rely. The legislation has been endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities amongst others.
The legislation would also provide $24 billion to states to help support 300,000 education jobs, put 5,500 law enforcement officers on the beat, and retain, rehire, and hire firefighters. The bill would also fund approximately 50,000 additional private-sector on-the-job training positions to enable workers to acquire core job skills and to help local businesses put people back to work.
The Local Jobs for America Act will create or save more than 675,000 local community jobs and more than 250,000 education jobs, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee. The need for bold Congressional action has never been more important. We urge Members of Congress to support HR 4812/S. 3500.
Protecting the Joint Strike Fighter: Keeping America Safe while Preserving Quality Jobs
In Lynn, Massachusetts, nearly 2,000 IUE-CWA members support their families building a fighter engine crucial to our national defense and which provides long term Pentagon budget savings. The plant has historic significance -- producing quality goods for Americans since 1882.
The plant, operated by General Electric (GE) produces the jet engine for the all-American Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) known as the F-135. The JSF is a multi-role, single engine fighter being developed to become the single fighter for the armed forces. It will replace a range of aircraft including the A-10, the F-14, the F-16, the AV-8B Harrier, the Sea Harrier, and the F/A- 18. The JSF program is the Department of Defense’s focal point for defining affordable next generation strike aircraft weapons system for the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, and all of our allies. A safe, responsive, and dependable engine design and manufacture is therefore critical for the defense of our nation, and the men and women at the GE plant in Lynn, MA work in competition with Pratt & Whitney on an alternative engine.
At issue is whether to continue producing two engines. Some argue its Pentagon waste, while in truth competitive engine programs have saved 20% of projected costs over the life of their engines. Further the IUE-CWA produced engine has come in below costs and exceeds quality testing. GE also has offed a “fixed” price contract.
Engine competition saves money. The “engine wars” started when several systematic problems arose with the F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, which also relied on a single engine. Congress took needed action, and started an alternative fighter-engine program that provided funding for rival companies to produce engines for the same planes. One company receives a certain percentage of the engine contract and another one the rest. The alternative program worked wonders, building a new, more reliable and safe aircraft engine while cutting production costs dramatically in both the long and short run. The same beneficial effects are expected here, as production of the alternative JSF engine uses market forces to ensure that our new strike fighter fleets are the best possible quality- Americans deserve no less. Unfortunately, the Secretary of Defense has railed against this concept leaving it to the House and Senate to protect competition and save taxpayers money, while ironically the DoD argues against “waste.”
In the current fiscal climate, another critical benefit to the alternative JSF engine production becomes the immense savings it offers the taxpayer. An analysis published by the General Accounting Office (GAO) says that the F-15/F-16 “engine wars” saved 21 percent on the cost of the engine. The GAO additionally stated that if the savings this time amounts to half of what was saved on the F-16, dual-sourcing will be cost neutral. So far, the GE Rolls Royce program has been ahead of deadlines and below the cost at every check point. The Pratt engine, on the other hand, already experienced $1.9 billion in cost overruns, forcing the DOD to send a team into Pratt to investigate and indentify the problems.
Finally, the government has already spent $2.5 billion on the development of this GE F-136 engine, and 80 percent of allocated funds have already been spent. Now is not the time to end this program. If we stop now, when $850 million is needed to complete the program, we will have wasted $2.5 billion dollars just when the savings were about to kick into full gear.
The second engine by Pratt & Whitney is inferior. The failures of the Pratt & Whitney test program are evidence enough to reveal the magnitude of continuing funding for alternative engine production. In August, 2007, a Pratt & Whitney engine running at a test facility experienced failures in the low-pressure turbine blade which caused stoppage of all engine activity. In February, 2008, the failure occurred again in another engine. If these failures persisted upon adoption of the Pratt & Whitney product, the United States military could experience a single point systematic failure. General Electric/ Rolls Royce’s’ alternative engine would alleviate this jarring risk. Meanwhile, the GE/Rolls Royce engine has come in below cost, exceeded quality expectations, and has been offered at a fixed price contract as opposed to cost plus.
General Electric employs thousands of highly skilled and technical IUE-CWA members, earning their living building this competitive engine. Eliminating this program would force them into unemployment and deeper financial crisis. It would also decimate the number of these highly skilled and technical workers that this country needs to compete in the global economy. Continuation of the F 136 dual engine program makes economic sense and protects CWA jobs.
Prevent Aviation Job Outsourcing
CWA strongly supports newly proposed bi-partisan legislation, H.R. 4788, “The Aviation Jobs Outsourcing Prevention Act”, which would protect U.S. workers by requiring U.S. airlines to operate a percentage of flying within their global alliance and would require the Department of Transportation to review and approve revenue sharing agreements.
Airlines are increasingly using revenue sharing agreements such as alliances, code share agreements and joint ventures to increase their global presence, their competitive advantage and to maximize their revenue. Traditionally, global alliances incorporated an incentive for each airline to provide flying including equipment and employees. As the operator of a route, the airline collects the majority of passenger and freight revenue. In this scenario, employees benefited from the arrangement. However, a new type of joint venture goes far beyond the typical code share agreements that are prevalent today, exposing traditionally protected markets and threatening the long-term job security of aviation workers.
This new type of joint venture agreement creates an avenue for airlines to shift flying to a venture partner, effectively off-shoring quality U.S. aviation jobs. These are not idle concerns: In March 2010, United and Aer Lingus inaugurated such a joint venture agreement exploiting provisions in the EU/US Open Skies Treaty that allow flying between any destination in the European Union and any U.S. city. Under the agreement, United will provide the marketing and use their U.S. route structure to feed passengers onto this route while Aer Lingus will provide the flying, i.e. the aircraft and contract flight attendants and pilots. Meanwhile, almost 3,500 United flight attendants and pilots are laid off. Although United will not provide any of the actual flying, it will reap a substantial share of the revenue. This is yet another attack on American middle class jobs which ultimately serves to further erode the American economy.
Congress should not permit emerging business practices that exploit Open Skies agreements to undermine job growth in the U.S. airline industry. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressmen Tim Bishop, Thad McCotter and Mike Michaud have introduced The Aviation Jobs Outsourcing Prevention Act which prevents U.S. job loss by stipulating that when airlines enter into international revenue-sharing agreements the amount of revenue the airline receives is proportionate to the amount of flying the U.S. airline actually provides its workers. By requiring airlines to put their own “metal” and people onto a route, this bill ensures that U.S. aviation workers perform a share of the jobs that support revenue sharing partnerships between U.S. airlines and foreign carriers.
HR 4788 would prevent an airline from using the labor cost advantages of foreign carriers to shift jobs overseas. We want our airlines to grow and be profitable - but we must be part of that growth. HR 4788 establishes reasonable limits on the approval of international joint venture partnerships and ensures that U.S. workers share in the jobs that are produced by joint ventures.
CWA urges members of Congress to prevent aviation job outsourcing by supporting H.R. 4788.
Protecting US Foreign Language Broadcast Services
CWA is urging members of Congress to cosponsor and support HR 4886 and S. 3104, bills that would permanently authorize the authority of Radio Free Asia (RFA). This bill will protect hundreds of media jobs while promoting the open communication of information and ideas.
RFA is a private, non-profit corporation that broadcasts news and information to listeners in Asia in 13 languages and dialects. Here in America, we know that everyone has the right to freedom of information and ideas, but in these parts of Asia, these basic human rights are overlooked for political gain. The programming of RFA have established themselves as critical information lifelines to a broad range of countries including but not limited to China, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA) members perform the work of bringing news to these underserved areas of the world.
RFA has been hindered in its ability to carry out its vital mission and employees have been unable to adequately plan for the future because of sunset restrictions which cause the authorization for RFA to expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Because of Congressional inaction on their authorization, RFA has been unable to carry out operations such as hiring staff, planning programming and negotiating cost effective lease and capital agreements. Without Congressional action, these employees could begin receiving pink slips in the coming weeks. And further delay could lead to programming eliminations and individuals throughout Asia would have access only to news controlled and censored by their government.
Members of Congress must stand up for the values of freedom of speech and press and for the TNG_CWA members who are actively spreading them worldwide by supporting HR 4886/S. 3104.