Iowa man heads to Boston to push union concerns

An Iowa man’s on the way to Boston today to appear on stage when the national leader of the AFL-CIO speaks tonight. Machinist Jerry Nowadzky lives in Monticello and works in Marion, Iowa. Nowadzky says he’s one of the Iowans affected by their jobs going overseas, seeing his first job close down and move to China and his second one move to Mexico. Nowadzky says he’s far from the only worker in Iowa whose standard of living is drastically reduced by the exporting of American jobs. In his local union in Cedar Rapids, Nowadzky says more than a thousand people lost jobs, and most have had to take other jobs for less pay. He says he himself now works for about half his former wages, and has no benefits. Nowadzky says he doesn’t yet know what National AFL-CIO head John Sweeney will propose in his speech tonight at the convention. He says “there’s gotta be some kind of an answer out there” to protect the middle-class working person, with so many companies moving jobs and offices overseas so they don’t have to pay any taxes. He says they might be making more profit but they’re not passing it on to the people here who buys the products. Nowadzky says it makes him mad to hear the exporting of jobs to other countries praised as good for the economy, while workers in the U.S. find they’re losing their paychecks. He hopes to stand for all the people affected, and says he’s trying to build futures for his children and grandkids. National AFL-CIO head John Sweeney’s scheduled to take the stage at the democratic national convention tonight at 6:30 Iowa time.