I would really like to know where the rational voters of Seattle were the day this crack pot made it into city government. Not only does councilwoman Kshama Sawant call business people and cops “criminals,” she is now calling on Boeing machinist union members to “[T]ake over the factor[y], and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine.” It’s all in the name of “democracy” you know.
To put her crazy into some sort of perspective, the machinist union’s national headquarters took over the negotiations for Boeing’s local machinists, telling the company to stuff their latest offer. The decision essentially meant Boeing would take their 777x business elsewhere. From the Labor Union Report website,
According to Heraldnet.com, local union members and local union leadership were shut out of the negotiations entirely.
By all accounts, IAM leadership in Washington, D.C., and Boeing representatives kept leaders of Seattle-based District 751 in the dark about the contract talks before presenting the porposal [sic] to them less than two weeks ago. The offer called for major concessions — including trading pensions for 401(k) plans and increasing health care costs — in exchange for placing 777X final assembly in Everett and a $10,000 signing bonus, among other promises.
When the company told the machinists to go pound sand, the socialist councilwoman sprang into action to ‘save’ the jobs the union scuttled. She proposed workers take over the Everett plant and “re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines.” Here’s her latest via KIRO TV,
By Gary Horcher
SEATTLE —
Seattle City Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state
“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.
This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.
On Monday night, she spoke to supporters of Boeing Machinists, six days after they rejected a contract guaranteeing jobs in Everett building the new 777X airliner for eight years, in exchange for new workers giving up their guaranteed company pensions.
Now Boeing is threatening to take those jobs to other states. “That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it’s going to devastate the state’s economy,” she said.
Sawant is calling for machinists to literally take-possession of the Everett airplane-building factory, if Boeing moves out. She calls that “democratic ownership.”
“The only response we can have if Boeing executives do not agree to keep the plant here is for the machinists to say the machines are here, the workers are here, we will do the job, we don’t need the executives. The executives don’t do the work, the machinists do,” she said.
Sawant says after workers “take-over” the Everett Boeing plant; they could build things everyone can use.
“We can re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines,” she told KIRO 7.
Sawant says she was referring to “drones” when speaking of war machines. Still, she says even as they work on the lines, building airplanes daily, she believes Boeing workers are under siege.
“Workers have to realize, they have more power than they think,” she said.
