The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.27           July 22, 1996 
 
 
Hundreds Rally For McDonnell Strike  

BY MARY MARTIN

ST. CHARLES, Missouri - Hundreds of striking machinists and supporters gathered at the Horse Palace here June 22 for a hog roast and support rally for International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 837 members who are on strike against McDonnell Douglas Corp.

No new negotiations are set in the strike, which began June 5 over job security, health insurance, and pensions. McDonnell's main goal is to eliminate 1,700 jobs through outsourcing and job combination. In the third week of the strike the company began to carry out its publicly announced plan to bring in replacement workers.

According to an IAM international union official, Matt Bates, 47 workers from the company's nonunion aircraft plant in Mesa, Arizona, began work in late June in Building 27. Bates said they are assigned to do the work of 100 people who before the strike were spread out over three shifts.

Union president Jerry Oulson led the strikers in a moment of silence to commemorate McDonnell Douglas test pilot Jeffrey Crutchfield, who died June 19 when the F/A-18C Hornet Fighter plane he was flying crashed and burned. This aircraft was overhauled and put together again in the St. Louis McDonnell Douglas facility. Many strikers who had been working on this particular aircraft said they were horrified to realize that this plane, unfinished at the time of the strike, was worked on and signed off by the plant supervisors and engineers.

Seven of these workers spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about their concerns on condition of anonymity for fear of company reprisals. Media attention here has focused on the fact that the complex operations of aircraft overhaul and assembly cannot be easily or quickly handed over to untrained workers, including salaried engineers and supervisory personnel.

Striking flight mechanic Ron Bedsworth, who has several years experience on F-18s and experimental planes, told the Militant that safety questions in aircraft assembly should be paramount. "You've got to have shift tie-ins [shift change reports], final checks and double checks, and a second pair of eyes," looking at all aircraft assembly work. "If we had been in there, this wouldn't have happened," he said. "There is no way engineers would be as proficient in this work as someone who does it year in and year out. It is a travesty that the pilot had to lose his life."

The St. Louis Labor Council, AFL-CIO, had launched an appeal for all union organized workers in St. Louis to give $5 each to the strike. The campaign, launched last week by labor council President Robert Kelley, is called "$Five for the Fight."

Participants in the June 22 rally consumed eight donated hogs, all dubbed either Herb or Harry after McDonnell president Herbert Lanese and CEO Harold Stonecipher. Eddie Star, a steelworker and labor singer, was among the local artists who provided musical entertainment. A few speakers gave greetings to the rally including Dawn Donahui, a participant in the AFL-CIO program for youth called "Union Summer."  
 
 
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