Today, Friday September 23, 2005, at 4 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, longtime Machinist Union activists Don Grinde and David Clay will be on the Dave Ross Show (710AM KIRO, Seattle) to dicuss the Machinist Union rank and file view of the 21 day old strike underway at Boeing by IAM&AW.
Dave Ross is webcast. Live streaming audio here. Update [2005-9-23 23:22:31 by RonK Seattle]: Direct, downloadable .mp3 link here.
Grinde and Clay's 9/3/05 Labor Day weekend KEXP FM interview has been webcast across Europe, Australia and North America. "Now that's union globalization."
This is a big one, folks, with the company driving wedges between age/seniority groups and pressing for givebacks on top of Boeing's unfavorable post-9/11 contract.
From KIRO website:
Depending on your Internet Connection, please allow at least 30 seconds for the media player and stream to load. Thank you for choosing to listen to Newsradio 710 KIRO online! This station is utilizing
Liquid Compass, a national streaming and creative services company to broadcast its signal to the Internet. This streaming media service supports PC, MAC and Linux users! To ensure that that you are able to fully enjoy this stream, please make sure that your computer has the latest free and computer safe Windows Media Player. If you do not have Windows Media Player, please click on the following link that will redirect you to the Microsoft download center:
www.microsoft.com
A little background from
Business Week:
With any savings to Boeing soon to be eaten up in the strike's first month, what's really driving Boeing remains a mystery.
AP:
Of all the numbers that Boeing Machinists said they were unhappy with when they went on strike Friday, one sticks out: 2002. That‘s the year Machinists — sobered by the effects on the airline industry of the Sept. 11. 2001, terror attacks — negotiated what they now consider a sub-par contract.
Socialist Worker Online:
David: We’ve had the same contract with the machinists at Boeing in Wichita and Portland [Ore.] for 50-plus years. In this contract, they didn’t want to give the same economic package, the same medical package, the same benefits package. I can remember reading--in blogs and posts on different message boards--the guys from Wichita going, “Those guys from Puget Sound are going to sell us out.” Well, guess what? We didn’t sell them out. Don: The Wichita division did get sold already [by Boeing to the Canadian company Onex, costing 11,000 jobs]. We had no say.