IBEW Government Department Director Gilbert Bateman (second from left, at rear) presented the report of the Audit Committee at the Metal Trades Department Convention. At the podium to introduce Bateman is Audit Committee Chair Tony Walencik, Iron Workers international representative. Standing, at left, is Audit Committee member Mike Crawley, president of the Metal Trades Council at Ingalls Shipyard.

Metal Trades Convention

December 2003 IBEW Journal

At a convention of the Metal Trades Department, AFL-CIO, more than 100 delegates from the Metal Trades’ 17 affiliated unions--including the IBEW--approved a program to energize the department’s collective bargaining, organizing and political/legislative activities. The convention was held October 22-23 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"IBEW represents thousands of Metal Trades workers in such industries as federal and private shipbuilding and repair, nuclear weapons manufacturing, nuclear operations, and a range of government functions," said IBEW Government Department Director Gil Bateman, who served as secretary of the Metal Trades Convention Audit Committee.

Other IBEW delegates to the MTD convention included William D. "Chico" McGill, business manager of Local 733, Pascagoula, Mississippi; David Timothy, business manager of Local 77, Seattle, Washington; and additional IBEW leaders representing Metal Trades councils and local union affiliates of Metal Trades councils.

Four Metal Trades Councils represent the U.S. Navy shipyards that perform overhaul and repair for the Navy’s fleet. "However, there is growing evidence that navy policymakers have been bending the rules in order to exploit opportunities to use foreign repair facilities in Japan, Australia and elsewhere to the detriment of U.S.-based federal and private facilities," said Ron Ault, who was re-elected Metal Trades Department president.

"U.S. policymakers continue to ignore the growing need to maintain an adequate Navy fleet," Ault told the convention. "Today, the national goal of a 375-ship Navy remains elusive. The Department of Defense ranks shipbuilding and repair allocations among its lowest priorities."

Among the Metal Trades’ legislative goals for the 108^th Congress are: support for a 375-ship Navy fleet; continuation of Title XI shipbuilding loan guarantees; restoration of the U.S. Merchant Marine Security Fleet; support for the Jones Act requiring use of U.S. built and flagged cargo vessels operating between U.S. ports; and stronger "Buy American" laws for federal purchases.

IBEW and other Metal Trades unions have also battled Bush Administration proposals to radically alter the U.S. Defense Department’s personnel system. "A plan proposed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and sent to Congress attached to the [fiscal 2004] Defense Authorization bill would undermine the wages, benefits and job security of more than 700,000 Defense Department civilian workers and strip away their union representation," the Metal Trades reports.

"The Bush Administration, through Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is attempting to abolish the rights of civilian employees working for the Defense Department," says IBEW International President Edwin D. Hill, who was reelected to the Metal Trades Executive Council. "Bush is the first and only president who has moved to take away the bargaining rights of these employees, failing to recognize their demonstrated loyalty and leadership. IBEW and Metal Trades members continue in the fight against such anti-worker, anti-union measures."

"This administration routinely equates unionization with a lack of patriotism and weakened security when it comes to government workers," President Hill says. "These are the same unionized government workers who built and maintained our top-secret weapons systems that helped bring an end to the cold war."

[Editor’s Note: At press time House and Senate conferees on the FY 2004 Defense Authorization bill were meeting to reconcile differences in each chamber’s legislation. One of the most contentious issues is the Rumsfeld plan.]

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