The IAM recently had a strike at Vance AFB in Enid, Oklahoma. That strike is over, but the same Union Reps. that were over Vance are the same ones that are over Tinker AFB. The District President who was part of the Vance strike has already warned the Tinker union members to start saving their money. There are over 200 plus IAM contract employees at Tinker. Our CBA is up in August of 2010.

Tinker AFB is a major AFB in the center of the United States. It's a lot larger than Vance. This AFB takes care of a lot of planes that are sent to war overseas. Tinker is over 5000 acres big and has just aquired an abandoned GM plant that's about 3.3 million square feet plus a couple hundred acres around it.

I would think that if the IAM District President is planning on striking if things don't goes his way, then he would be assisting the Taliban and the insurgents by stopping some of the processes that it takes to maintain these aircraft. Some of the union members are considered essential personnel and have to be at work on base no matter what the weather conditions are. Essential contract personnal being in a union seems to be a conflict of interest, and a definite internal security threat.

If the war planes can't receive the proper maintenance they require, then that puts our troops at a greater risk because of insufficient air support. This may or may not be a strech, but it would seem that if we did have to go on strike, then the insurgents couldn't have a better friend state side then the IAM.

I feel that anytime a union strikes a military base during war time, they are directly giving aid to the enemy. Any disruption in U.S. military operations either at home or abroad is a direct threat to the well being of our troops at war. I have been in the IAM for several years, but I refuse to strike if there is even a remote chance that it might make things worse for our troops in harms way. If the District or International don't like it, then they can kiss my flag.