WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 1690 President/Business Manager Mike Randolph (on the left) and Local 169 Vice President Jason Gunsolus stand outside Olean Advanced Products’ Manufacturing Plant in the Cattaraugus County City of Olean.  Local 1690, which currently represents 125 Employees at the Southern Tier Ceramic Capacitor Manufacturing Facility, is hosting a Rally in early October to draw attention to the Company shipping as many as 50 U.S. Jobs to Mexico, where Capacitors are being produced for use by the U.S. Military and are being made by Workers that the Union says are being paid $6.50-an-hour and provided with one meal a day by the Company.  (Photo Courtesy of IBEW Local 1690)

(OLEAN) – On Saturday, October 6th, Manufacturing Workers represented by IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 1690 will join with hundreds of Western New York Union Members to focus a spotlight on Olean Advanced Products, which Union Officials tell WNYLaborToday.com has outsourced 50 Jobs to Mexico in recent years.

According Local 1690 Officials, Olean Advanced Products - which produces Ceramic Capacitors that are used in Power Supply Applications for a number of Industries, ranging from Auto to Communications, as well as for the U.S. Military - has outsourced production of its Capacitors made for the U.S. Military to Mexico. 

And Local 1690 President/Business Manager Michael Randolph tells Your Regional, On-Line Labor Newspaper the situation has the potential to be worse, since the Company has announced it could eventually close its area operation located in this Cattaraugus County City.

"We’re doing this grassroots-style and taking our issue to the streets,” Randolph said.  “We want to make sure our ‘voices’ are heard loud and clear from Olean’s Town Hall to Albany to Washington, D.C.  We want our Elected Officials, at every level, to know that our jobs in Olean are important and we aren’t going to stand by and just watch them be systematically shipped Out-of-State and Overseas, along with the Products we make."

In order to send a loud and clear message not only to the Company, but to Local, State and Federally-Elected Officials, IBEW Local 1690 is spreading the word to its Brother and Sister Unions within the Cattaraugus-Allegany AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, as well as reaching out to the Western New York AFL-CIO Area Federation and IBEW Locals in Jamestown, Orchard Park and Niagara Falls.  Randolph told WNYLaborToday.com he is hoping with such advanced notice that 500 or more Unionists will be in attendance when the Rally is held at Lincoln Park in Downtown Olean between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.   

“This Company has been actively outsourcing its work to Juarez, Mexico and we’ve lost nearly fifty Jobs over the past two years,” Randolph said.  Currently IBEW Local 1690 represents 125 Workers at Olean Advanced Products, but while Union-Represented Workers make between $11.35- to -$17-an-hour, Randolph said the Company is paying its Mexican Workers $6.50-an-hour and providing them with “one meal a day.” 

The Union - whose present Three-Year Contract with the Company expires in 2014 - has approached the owners of Olean Advanced Products in an attempt to stop the flow of their Jobs to Mexico and offered to work with the Company to make it more feasible to have the work stay in Olean, but Randolph said representatives of the Greenville, South Carolina Business tell Union Officials that they “are looking at the bottom dollar.”

Randolph tells WNYLaborToday.com he believes “people should have a problem” with the fact that some of the Company’s Foreign-Made Capacitors being are being produced for and used by the U.S. Military, and that he is “tired” of speaking to Elected Officials, who seem more focused on obtaining funding to provide extended Unemployment Benefits and Retraining Opportunities instead of working harder to keep American Jobs in the United States.

“It seems like we get the run-around when we press our Politicians on Public Policy like this.  What we get back is: ‘Well, that’s the way it is.’  And that’s what we’re getting from our Local, State and Federally-Elected Officials.  We would rather be working and that’s what we’re saying is that there’s no need to ship these kinds of jobs outside our Country,” he said. 

While the situation in Olean has the ability to hit the local Southern Tier Economy hard if the Olean Advanced Products Plant eventually does close, Randolph said the IBEW has been made aware by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer that as many as 14 other Companies across Western New York - and a total of 72 across New York State - are in the same situation of outsourcing Good-Paying American Jobs. 

“Our Union welcomes ‘all’ Workers across Western New York to our Rally,” Randolph added.  “We’re spreading the word through the Central Labor Councils because ‘all’ Labor, in general, is facing these kinds of problems.  What we need is to get a Federal Policy change.  The Policies that are currently in place ‘don’t benefit’ the Middle Class, and we need to call attention to it.  We’re not just going to stand by and let this happen.  We’re going to fight tooth and nail to get it back to where we were.”