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IAM Takes To The Streets
Pointing the finger at Corporate
America and President Bush for the lost of millions of American jobs,
IAMAW President R. Thomas Buffenbarger took the outrage of America's
working families to the streets of Hartford, Connecticut. President Buffenbarger led a march of hundreds of union members from Hamilton Sundstrand, Pratt & Whitney and UTC Fuel Cells, along with IAM members from across the United States and Canada, to the Gold building in downtown Hartford, headquarters to United Technologies. They are fighting for the future of Connecticut. Manufacturing jobs are a key part of the state’s economy, but UTC is preparing to further undermine that foundation by shedding more jobs, and many long-service Connecticut workers in the process. Pratt is now preparing to lay off 130 high seniority workers, many of them women workers and people of color, to send parts shipping to non-union centers in Georgia. Pratt is also planning to send military work, paid for with American tax dollars, to Poland. Hamilton is planning to export a number of production jobs to Maastrict, and is bringing in new hires despite 300 workers out on layoff. At UTC Fuel Cells, the ranks of salary employees and vendors grow while hourly jobs shrink. President Buffenbarger blamed the lost of jobs and the destruction of the manufacturing base in north America to corporate greed and federal governments that supports it. "Come November 2004 we need to give President Bush a pink slip" declared President Buffenbarger.
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