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Aug 28
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IAM LL 733 Votes on HBC Contract
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Aug 28
11:15-12-30
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United Way Labor Kickoff
Best Western Wichita North
915 E 53 N
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Aug 30
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SPEEA float in Black Arts Festival Parade
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Aug 30
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Wichita Labor Day Celebration
CANCELLED TO SUPPORT HBC STRIKE
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Aug 30
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District 70 Car Show and Poker Run
AS SCHEDULED
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Sept 1
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Labor Day
Topeka, Hutchinson
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Sept 3
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Boeing Contract Vote
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Sept 5-14
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Kansas State Fair
Visit the Union Label booth
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Sept 7-13
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IAM Grand Lodge Convention
Orlando, Florida
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COMPLETE CALENDAR
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Check availability of meeting room at the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation.
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UNION VIDEO OF THE MONTH
June 2008
Steven Greenhouse discusses his new book The Big Squeeze
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In the KC area tune in Thursdays at 6:00-7:00 PM or Fridays 5:00-6:00 AM and for live streaming at www.kkfi.org
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July-August 2008
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7/31
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Human Trafficking American Style and The Solidarity Economy
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8/7
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Richer Rich and Poorer Poor: Why's There So Much Inequality?
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8/14
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Who Is Enforcing Minimum Wage and Overtime Laws? And Raise the Wage Kansas
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8/21
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Meet the Union Maid and the Union Mann: Anne Feeney and George Mann
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8/28
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Labor Day: Bill Fletcher on labor's future
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Listen to Past Shows
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Machinists Approve Hawker Beechcraft Contract
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IAM LL 733 members have voted by a 77% margin to approve the contract with Hawker Beechcraft. Congratulations.!
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What to do on Labor Day Weekend
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Wondering what to do this Labor Day weekend, since the Wichita Labor Day picnic was canceled to support the HBC
strikers. There’s still a few things you can do.
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1. Attend the District 70 Car Show
2. Participate in the District 70 Poker Run
3. JOIN SPEEA at the 40th Annual BLACK ARTS FESTIVAL PARADE
Location: 17th & Fairmount, West on 17th Street
toMcAdam’s Park South on WabashDate: Saturday, Aug. 30Parade Line Up: 9:30 a.m.
(meet in WSU parking lot by SPEEA banner)
Parade starts: 10:30 a.m.SPEEA needs volunteers to hand out candy/fun items to the kids.
4. Attend the Hutchinson Labor Day Picnic
Labor Day, 11;00- 3:00 PM Carey Park Hutchinson
5. Attend the Topeka Labor Day Parade
Downtown Topeka for the Labor Day Parade September 1 at 11:00AM.
Festivities following the parade will take place at the
Capitol Grounds with speakers, kids games, a jazz band, free hot dogs, drinks and snacks. Families and friends are welcome to
attend.
6. Hear Bands at the Kansas City Labor Day Parade
A free concert featuring country artists
such as Jackson Taylor, Outlaw Junkies, Scott Ford, including a jam session of other metro artists, will follow Kansas City’s
Labor Day parade/
On Labor Day, Monday, September 1st at 11am. if you’re standing near the intersection of Main Street and Pershing in downtown Kansas City, Missouri between Union Station and Crown Center you will see the start of the Labor Day Parade. An old time tradition will include President, Harry Truman, the Impersonator, Neal Johnson familiar to most from the Truman Library in Independence, riding as the Parade Grand Marshal; this year’s parade theme is, “Celebrating the Year of Our President”.
Following President Harry Truman, will be the
silver coupe that he actually once owned, for those nostalgia buffs. The Labor Unions gather to parade in the streets of downtown
Kansas City, showing how they highlight Labor Day with some of the World’s largest Construction Equipment, big Trucks, new
Cars fresh off the line from Ford and GM Assembly Plants in the metro, Baton twirling Teachers, AFT of Kansas City, Clowns and
other Floats that you would expect to see in a Parade. Organizers are expecting the parade to stretch for miles with the sheer
enormity of the equipment entries this year. As the parade concludes at approximately 12:30pm within the Liberty Memorial’s
south lawn ,all will be greeted by a stage set to” jam in the afternoon”, with a free concert and family picnic;
including an Army Schnook Helicopter available for tours, a trick Motocross stunt team and the Falcon Skydiving Team exhibition.
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SPEEA, W/HLF Make Contribtuions to LL 733 Strike Fund
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 SPEEA on Monday August 25th, 2008 presented to
LL733 President Tim Franta and Vice-President Mike Richardson a check for $5,000 plus $102.00 donated by
members of their Council along with food items from their July meeting for striking Hawker Beechcraft members.
The Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation made a $1000 contribution to the strike fund at their August meeting.
Pictured Left to Right are Earl Carter SPEEA, Mikechardson VP LL733, Tim Franta Pres. LL733, Donna
Castaneda SPEEA Midwest Council Chair, and BJ Moore SPEEA presenting the check and money. Shane Michael Chair, WEU Spirit.
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MACHINISTS, UNIONS MOURN JEFF HART
(Aug 18) The Machinists Union today is mourning the tragic accident that took the life of Jeff Hart, 45, who was struck and killed by a
vehicle early this morning while crossing Greenwich Blvd in East Wichita. A two-year IAM member, Mr. Hart was joining fellow Hawker
Beechcraft workers to demonstrate solidarity and support for a fair contract.
IAM members, including Mark Huckabee, a Leon, KS, EMT, and fellow member Joe Cook, and his wife, Brenda, a registered nurse, provided
CPR and assistance until the police and ambulance arrived. Unfortunately, Jeff was pronounced dead at 6:37 A.M.
The Machinist Union, as well as members who witnessed the accident, are cooperating fully with the Wichita Police Department in the
ongoing investigation and we cannot comment further on the accident itself.
Our thoughts and prayers today go out to Jeff's family. Donations are being collected today in every IAM-represented facility in
Wichita, and we intend to do everything possible to assist the family of our fallen member. The Machinists Union is a family, and today
we grieve as a family.
A Celebration of Life Services for Jeff Hart will be 1:00 p.m. Thursday, at Countryside Christian Church, 1919 S. Rock Road, Wichita,
KS.
To donate to the family click here
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Boeing's failure to track foreign workers hurts programs, risks trade
violations, says SPEEA
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SEATTLE - While building its global supplier network, The
Boeing Company is putting delivery schedules and programs at risk by failing to trackthe number and locations of foreign workers at its
U.S. facilities, according to the union representing 21,500 engineers and technical
workers at the aerospace giant.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in
Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local 2001, is uncovering a growing number of mistakes by the inexperienced foreign contractors who work
directly for Boeing or a global partner. Union officials said problems with contractors contribute to delays with the 787 and other
commercial and defense programs. Union efforts to address the issue with Boeing and trackcontract labor have been rejected.
"We continue to uncover a pattern of abuse of foreign
contract labor at Boeing facilities," said Ray Goforth, SPEEA executive director. "This is bringing the mistake of
outsourcing, which continues to delay the 787, right into Boeing offices and factories." MORE
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IAM International President Joins Wichita Strikers
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 (iMail Aug 7) Striking members of Local 733 in
Wichita, KS, warmly welcomed IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger to their picket lines where members are holding
strong on day three of the strike against Hawker Beechcraft.
“You gave a signal with your overwhelming vote
that you’ve had a bellyful, and you want a good wage, dignity and respect,” said Buffenbarger, who also
spoke with members and their families at strike
headquarters. “When a company doesn't want to be a partner and give you an agreement, we've got to stand our
ground.”
The strike at Hawker Beechcraft comes just as negotiations for 26,000 IAM members employed by the Boeing Co.,
in Wichita, Seattle and Portland are becoming increasingly contentious. “It would not bode well for the company
to take a threatening stance in these negotiations,” warned IAM Aerospace Coordinator Mark Blondin, who noted
the aerospace industry is seeing some of the best profits and backlogs in years.
Key issues at Hawker Beechcraft, which is also swimming in profits and airplane orders, include job security,
health care, earned time off for new hires, overtime schedules and pensions. No new talks are currently scheduled.
“We've told the entire union to mobilize,” declared Buffenbarger. “Wichita's our focus. Hawker Beechcraft is the
cause. You've got the attention of all Machinists across North America”
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Labor Day Picnic Cancelled to Support Strike
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The IAM Hall on South Meridian is being transformed into a strike warehouse to distribute food to the striking workers at Hawker Beechcraft. The
Executive Board of the Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Fed has decided that it will be necessary to cancel the planned August 30 Labor Day picnic and bingo event
which has traditionally been held. Funds and supplies that had been allocated to the picnic will be donated to the strike fund.
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DISTRICT
70 Poker Run and Car Show Will Be Held as Scheduled
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SPEEA demands Boeing disclose funding of executive pensions
SEATTLE – To ensure the pension program relied on by 21,400 technical
employees at TheBoeing Company is not being secretly used to fund executive retirement benefits, the union representingthe employees is demanding the company
immediately disclose the extent and funding source of itsexecutive pension plans.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local
2001,formally requested the information from Boeing after a recent investigative news report by The WallStreet Journal uncovered U.S. corporations funding
executive pensions by funneling funds through regular employee plans. This practice weakens employees’ pensions while allowing corporations to
takeadvantage of huge tax benefits not normally available for executive pension plans. MORE
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Wyandotte County Commissioners vote to raise the minimum wage!
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KCK becomes the first city in Kansas to raise the minimum wage
above the state's lowest-in-the nation minimum wage of $2.65 an hour.
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 Kansas City, KS – On July 24, the federal minimum wage
rose to $6.55, nearly four dollars above the Kansas minimum wage of $2.65 an hour. Fittingly, the Unified Government of
Wyandotte County chose that day as the occasion to raise the local minimum wage rate to the federal level. From today
forward, workers in Kansas City, Kansas, will be guaranteed a minimum pay rate nearly two-and-a-half times as high as the state minimum wage.
This is a major success – and we owe this success to the vision
of the Wyandotte County Commissioners. Without their civic spirit and initiative, Kansas City
workers would remain mired at the Kansas minimum wage level of $2.65 an hour – the lowest
minimum wage in the nation. (Forty-four states have minimum wages higher than the Kansas
minimum wage, 23 have minimum wages higher than the federal level, and five, in the deep South, have no state minimum wages at all.) MORE
Raise the Wage Kansas is a project of the Kansas Action Network, a broad-based coalition
for workers' rights, social justice and economic fairness. Raise the Wage asks cities in Kansas to increase the minimum wage to the federal level.
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Wichita Hutchinson Labor Federation Recommends Jim Slattery for United States Senate
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The Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation will recommend that the Kansas
AFL-CIO endorse Jim Slattery for the United States Senate saying that "2008 presents a unique opportunity for Kansas to elect a United States Senator
who will put the people before corporate interests." Slattery was praised for having "ably served in the Kansas legislature and the United Sates
Congress from1983 to 1995 and received the endorsement of the labor movement in each of those elections."
In contrast, the labor organization noted "incumbent Senator Pat Roberts has
an extremely poor voting record. In his Congressional career he has voted with working families only 12 percent of the time and only 26 percent in 2007"
In 2007 Roberts voted against increasing the minimum wage, against the Employee Free Choice Act, against collective bargaining rights for federal employees,
against the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage act, and to ban majority sign-up for union recognitition.
Slattery has also been endorsed by other area unions including the Kansas State
Council of Machinists and the Wichita Area American Postal Workers Union.
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MORE
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Boeing Investors Get Briefing from IAM and SPEEA
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Washington DC, July 29, 2008: Today, the International Association of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) – in conjunction with the AFL-CIO's Office of
Investment – hosted an investor forum to provide an update regarding their upcoming negotiations with The Boeing Company.
MORE
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Machinists at Boeing Say “It’s Our Time!”
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Boeing Machinists sent a powerful message of solidarity this week after IAM members employed at Boeing Aircraft Co. voted by an
overwhelming 99 percent margin in favor of granting strike sanction authority to their Negotiating Committee.
“By casting their ballots in record numbers, they sent negotiators back to the bargaining table with the full support of the
membership and a clear message--it's payback time,” ? said IAM Aerospace Coordinator Mark Blondin. The 99 percent margin
includes IAM members voting in Seattle, WA; Wichita, KS; Portland, OR and Edwards Air Force Base, CA, representing nearly 27,000
employees at Boeing who have made “ Our Time, This Time!” €? the theme of negotiations.
Contract talks between the IAM and Boeing began on May 9, 2008. Round-the-clock bargaining will commence on Aug. 20. The current
contract expires at 12:01 a.m. on September 4, 2008.
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IAM Members speak out on Health Care, Hawker Beechcraft Talks
With contract and strike votes set for Saturday August 2, negotiations between IAM LL 733 and Hawker Beechcraft are in for some critical days. On of the key
issues is health. Here are videos from Wichita and Salina members.
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Wichita
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Salina
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Machinists Wary on Tanker Rebid Rules
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The IAM is calling on Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates to ensure the new round of bidding for the Air
Force refueling tanker contract does not include any residual bias from the initial competition, which contained significant errors and was heavily skewed
toward the Airbus tanker.
“We are calling for aggressive oversight of the bidding process to make sure Boeing’s tanker is evaluated on a
fair, level playing field,” said Headquarters GVP Rich Michalski. “We will not accept, nor should American taxpayers accept a process or an outcome
that is only slightly less rigged than the initial round of bidding.”
Fresh concerns erupted following yesterday’s announcement that the
Pentagon might once again use excessive fuel capacity and other criteria to favor the Airbus aircraft in a new round of bidding to replace the Air
Force’s aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers.
“I am concerned that the department is trying to find a new way to justify selecting the
larger Airbus tanker again, even though there is no current operational requirement for a larger refueling tanker,” said Washington state Rep. Norm
Dicks, who learned that the criteria for the new tanker will favor a larger tanker than was initially requested.
Rep. Dicks also noted that the Airbus
is 53 percent larger than the Boeing 767, requiring greater maintenance and operations costs. He noted that the Boeing KC-767 could save $35 billion in fuel
costs over 40 years—an amount large enough to equal the purchase of the entire fleet.
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UAW: New Casino ‘A Bad Bet For Kansas’
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by James Parks, Jul 10, 2008
AFL-CIO NOW Blog
The UAW is strenuously opposing plans by Harrah’s Entertainment to build a new casino in Kansas, calling the deal “a bad bet for Kansas.”
In a July 9 letter to the Kansas Lottery Gaming Facility Review Board, Jim Wells, director of UAW Region 5, says Harrah’s fails to live up to the
state’s required standards of “managerial competence and financial resources” to build a new casino.
The letter points out that
Bally’s, a subsidiary of Harrah’s, is refusing to bargain with workers at its Atlantic City casino. In fact, dealers at Bally’s testified
last month before the New Jersey gaming commission that the casino violates workers’ rights by refusing to bargain, forcing casino dealers to work
without pay, abusing seniority rights and failing to provide adequate security and safety procedures. The National Labor Relations Board has issued unfair
labor practice complaints against Bally’s for its actions.
The workers called on the commission to monitor activities at Bally’s and hold a new hearing in six months.
Since March 2007, more than 5,000
casino dealers, slot machine technicians and others have voted to join the UAW in six union representation elections at Bally’s and three other major
Atlantic City casinos: Caesars, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and Tropicana Casino and Resort. Yet, for more than a year, casino owners have delayed and stalled
negotiations.
Last month, thousands of union members and allies turned out in Atlantic City to rally in support of the casino dealers’ efforts to
win a contract. UAW also released a report detailing why Harrah’s should not be allowed to open a casino. The report outlines the company’s
shaky financial condition and its failure to treat its employees well.
The report notes that Harrah’s and two of the company’s senior
executives are facing criminal charges for violations of building and fire codes at its Las Vegas casino that may have put the public at risk.
The
report lauds Kansas for seeking avenues of economic development, but notes: this is no time to add to the risk by betting on Harrah’s financial integrity
or managerial competence.
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IAM Leaders on Spirit Negotiations
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SPEEA Recertified
By a 55 percent vote, workers in Spirit Aerosystems Technical and Professional Unit voted on  June 24 to recertify SPEAA as their union.
Showing support for SPEEA on Tuesday morning are, from left, Earl Carter, B.J. Moore, Dick Wilson and Gerald Castleberry
. Voting in the National Labor Relations Board election continued until 4 p.m. in the workplace. The results are in.
WTPU-Spirit election results
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Total
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Percentage
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Ballots authorized
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2,427
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Valid ballots
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1,968
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For SPEEA
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1,073
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54.5%
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