MACHINISTS CHEER GAO RULING OVERTURNING AIR FORCE TANKER DEAL

Friday, June 20, 2008

(PAI)MACHINISTS CHEER GAO RULING OVERTURNING AIR FORCE TANKER DEAL

    UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (PAI)--The Machinists cheered a Government Accountability Office ruling--unusual in federal contracting--to overturn the Air Force’s award of a $35 billion contract to build 179 refueling tankers to a combination of Northrop-Grumman and European Airbus Industrie, rather than Boeing.

    The GAO said the Air Force messed up the bidding by changing rules in mid-stream, to Airbus-Northrop’s advantage, and miscounted overall costs and savings of the two bids, giving the European-American combo an unearned edge over Boeing.

    Boeing’s bid would have union workers--most of them Machinists, but also Professional and Technical Engineers--construct the tankers in the U.S. The other bid would have split the work between a proposed U.S. plant in Mobile, Ala., and existing plants in Toulouse, France. After the anti-worker GOP Bush regime’s Air Force awarded the contract to Northrop and Airbus, Boeing filed the formal protest with GAO.

    Chicago-based Boeing, which would build the tankers in its plants in Seattle, Wichita and elsewhere, also launched a large public relations campaign pointing out the Air Force’s errors. The Machinists joined in and lobbied lawmakers to review the deal.   And the union launched a mass grass-roots campaign against the deal, which the Air Force unveiled in February. IAM represents 35,000 Boeing workers, thousands of whom would be working to build the new tankers.

    “This is a major victory for America,” said IAM Vice President Rich Michalski. “In addition to multi-million dollar accounting errors and foreign government subsidies, the Air Force made changes midway in the competition that further favored Airbus. The GAO report should be the foundation for reversing this outrageous award without delay.” GAO recommended the Air Force start the bidding all over again.

    "Awarding this contract to Boeing would preserve a key manufacturing sector and provide real economic stimulus for Boeing workers, vendors and communities in at least 30 U.S. states,” said IAM President Thomas Buffenbarger. Boeing would have based its tankers on the airplane frame it now uses for its 767 jets, while the Northrop-Airbus combo had “an unproven design” and the two firms have never designed USAF tankers.

    “We are confident the Boeing aircraft met every criteria established by the Air Force and will give our military a superior aircraft that will serve for decades,” said Michalski.   He urged the Air Force to award the tanker pact to Boeing now. But the contract may be a political football: Boeing originally had it several years ago, but only because Bush’s top Air Force procurement official was negotiating a Boeing executive job for herself at the same time. That scandal was uncovered by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now the presumed GOP presidential nominee.   He forced the Air Force to pull the original contract. The Air Force procurement official is now in jail.   ###