Machinists Union to Launch 'America's Edge' Campaign

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is launching 'America's Edge: Our Skills, Our Kids,' an issue campaign urging more public investment in skills development. By re-emphasizing technical and vocational education in America's high schools, expanding industrial and manufacturing technology courses in America's community colleges and creating High-Tech Institutes that will focus on 21st century manufacturing technologies, the IAM hopes to close the growing skills gap that America faces.

In the first salvo of a year-long campaign, the IAM will begin running television ads in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina right after the Christmas holidays.

"It's high time that we invested in the skills our kids need to compete in the global economy," said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. "Public investment at the local, state and federal level skews heavily towards the children who are college bound. We need to provide options for the twenty-four million children who enter high school each decade but do not go on to secure a college degree.

"Blue collar kids need to understand that their innate talents are valued by this society," explained Buffenbarger. "Their career choices cannot be reduced to an either-or proposition. Either get a college degree or accept a minimum wage job -- that's not the American way. And creating alternative pathways towards jobs that provide both challenging careers and a solid middle-class livelihood requires greater public investment in technical and vocational education, apprenticeships and community colleges."

The IAM is among the nation's largest industrial trade unions, representing workers in transportation, manufacturing, shipbuilding and defense-related industries. For more information about the IAM and the 'America's Edge' campaign, visit http://www.goiam.org.