Bechtel Moves Main Division out of SF

Bechtel is moving!
It is moving its most prominent division out of San Francisco to Maryland
to be near its main customer - the U.S. Government.
See the Chronicle article below.

I can assure you that this move is in no small part attributable to the ctions of concerned citizens like you letting Bechtel know that its actions are incompatable with the values of San Francisco.

We'll be talking about a good bye party for Bechtel as part of the February 24 day of action against the Corporate Invasion of Iraq at tonight's planning meeting. Please join us:

6 - 7:30PM
Friday, January 23
at the Quaker Meeting House
65 9th street between Market and Mission

Antonia Juhasz ,of International Forum on Globalization and Direct Action
Against the War fame, will be bringing us up to date on Bechtel‚s war
profiteering in Iraq. Andrea Buffa of Global Exchange and Code Pink will
just have returned from Iraq and with any luck we should be able to coax
her into sharing some of her observations.

The rest of the meeting will be spent making local plans for the Feb. 24 day of action to Stop The Corporate Invasion Of Iraq.

Stop the Corporate Invasion of Iraq!

On February 24, protest Halliburton, Bechtel, and the other corporations that are making millions in Iraq, and speak out for Iraqi workers‚ rights and self-determination.

WHAT: International day of protest to end the corporate invasion of Iraq and support Iraqi workers‚ rights
WHEN: Tuesday, February 24
WHERE: In your city, at the offices of Halliburton, Bechtel, or another war profiteering company (see suggestions below)

Following on the heels of the military invasion of Iraq, another invasion
began: a corporate invasion by Halliburton, Bechtel, and other U.S.
companies that were awarded millions in „reconstruction‰ contracts.
Nine months into the occupation, Iraqi schools are still in disrepair,
electricity is intermittent, and the water is not safe to drink.

Qualified Iraqi businesses say they are shut out of the reconstruction of
their own country and some 70% of Iraqi workers are unemployed. But the
contracts for U.S. companies -- especially ones with close ties to the
Bush administration - keep getting fatter, even as Halliburton is
suspected of overcharging the U.S. up to $61 million for fuel in Iraq, and
the Pentagon has accused Bechtel with doing „horrible‰ work.

At the same time, the occupation administration has essentially put Iraq
up for sale. In September, the Coalition Provisional Authority issued an
„order‰ that allows for the privatization of Iraqi state companies, 100%
ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories by foreign companies, and
100% expropriation of profits by foreign firms operating in Iraq. While
the U.S. saw fit to approve these drastic changes to Iraqi economic laws,
which very well may violate international law, it chose not to make any
changes to Iraqi labor laws. In a period in which Iraqi workers are
organizing throughout the country, the CPA left in place a Saddam
Hussein-era law that forbids workers in state-owned enterprises (where the
majority of Iraqis work) from forming unions. They have also repeatedly
detained or harassed workers who are demonstrating for jobs or better pay.



Please join the international day of action against the corporate invasion
of Iraq by organizing a Feb. 24 rally at Halliburton, Bechtel, MCI or
another war profiteering company that has offices in your city. If these
companies don‚t have an office in your city, protest in front of the
federal building or at another well-trafficked downtown location. For a
list of U.S. companies that have reconstruction contracts and TAKE ACTION - ORGANIZE A FEB. 24 PROTEST AT THE LOCAL OFFICE OF
HALLIBURTON, BECHTEL, OR ANOTHER WAR PROFITEERING COMPANYtheir local
offices, email peace [at] globalexchange.org or call 415-575-5555.

The protests don't have to be big - even a few people holding up signs in
front of a Halliburton local office would be great! Ideas for slogans
include: Bring Halliburton and Bechtel Home, Stop the Corporate
Invasion of Iraq, Support Iraqi Workers‚ Rights, Iraq is not America's to
Sell, Iraq for the Iraqis, Privatization is not Liberation, No Blood for
Corporate Profits, US Corporations get Freedom-Iraqi Workers Get Saddam's
laws, etc.

Tell us about your planned protest so we can publicize it as part of the
national day of action. Email peace [at] globalexchange.org or call Global
Exchange at 415-575-5555. To find out what‚s already planned, see
http://www.unitedforpeace.org

Sponsored by Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers (Institute for Southern
Studies), CodePink, Democracy Rising, Global Exchange, US Labor Against
War, National Network to End the War in Iraq, American Friends Service
Committee San Francisco, American Muslim Voice and the Ronald Reagan Home
for the Criminally Insane and others.


http://www.sfgate.com Return to regular view

Bechtel unit to leave S.F.
Division involved in Iraq moving to Maryland to be closer to D.C. David
R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 23, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/01/23/BUG6G4G0NN1.DTL


Bechtel Corp.'s most prominent division, the one rebuilding Iraq, is
leaving San Francisco for the East Coast to be closer to its main
customer, the U.S. government.

Bechtel National, which handles most of the construction company's work
for the federal government, will relocate to Frederick, Md., a 50-mile
drive from Washington. Two other divisions will leave as well, and the
move is expected to cost several hundred jobs at Bechtel's San Francisco
headquarters.

The company was founded in the Bay Area almost 100 years ago, and Bechtel
representatives say the headquarters itself will stay. But by the end of
2006, only one of the firm's eight business units, a finance division,
will remain here in its entirety.

"When the business is coming from the federal government, it makes sense
to be near the federal government," Bechtel spokesman Jonathan Marshall
said.

The president of Bechtel National, Thomas Hash, recently moved to the
Frederick office, which Bechtel established in 1999. The rest of Hash's
division will follow in the coming year.

Also heading to Frederick are an undisclosed number of the firm's
information technology workers and Bechtel Systems & Infrastructure, a
holding company that oversees Bechtel National.

Marshall said the number of jobs affected will be in "the low hundreds,"
with some transferred to Maryland and others cut. Bechtel will try to find
new jobs for those employees whose positions are eliminated, he said.

The firm employs 1,400 people in San Francisco. In addition to the finance
division, which will remain here in full, another subdivision of the
company, dealing with civil engineering projects like roads and bridges,
will stay here.

The histories of Bechtel and the Bay Area have been entwined for decades.

Bechtel helped build the Bay Bridge in the 1930s. During World War II, the
company's shipyard in Sausalito churned out liberty ships and tankers for
the Pacific theater. Bechtel threaded the BART subway through San
Francisco and Oakland and managed construction of the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art.

And yet the company's relationship with its home city hasn't always been
close.

In 2002, San Francisco officials dumped Bechtel from a $45 million job
revamping the city's aging water system. The move was inspired, in part,
by ideological considerations, after some members of the Board of
Supervisors slammed Bechtel for its role in a controversial water
privatization effort in Bolivia. Two supervisors even joined protests
outside the company's Beale Street headquarters.

Last year's war in Iraq brought back protesters en masse. Bechtel won U.S.
government contracts -- now worth nearly $3 billion -- to rebuild the
country, and it came under attack on the argument that it was profiting
from the war. Protesters repeatedly tried to shut down Bechtel's
headquarters.

Marshall said, however, that the protests and the loss of the Hetch Hetchy
contract had nothing to do with the decision to send Bechtel National
elsewhere. The city's political atmosphere, he said, would not prompt
Bechtel to leave altogether.

"We've been here many decades, and we plan to stay here," Marshall said.

Bechtel has already moved most of its business divisions elsewhere. With
projects scattered across the globe and 44,000 employees worldwide, the
company has become increasingly decentralized. One Bechtel division is
based in London, for example, and another in Australia.

Bechtel's Frederick office already holds more employees - 1,500 -- than
the San Francisco headquarters, with most specializing in
telecommunications or electrical power. It has become the largest private
employer in the county, said Joe Lebherz, president of the Frederick
County Chamber of Commerce.

"They're a good corporate citizen," Lebherz said. "It's nice to see them
growing."

Bechtel would hardly be the first government contractor to beef up its
presence in or around Washington.

"All of them have big branches here," said Peter Singer, a Brookings
Institution fellow and author of "Corporate Warriors," a study of the
private military industry. "It's about proximity, and all the advantages
that come with that."

That doesn't mean, however, that contractors feel compelled to move their
entire headquarters to Washington.

"Halliburton is a Texas company, but they still have a big presence here,
" he said.

Lee Blitch, president of San Francisco's Chamber of Commerce, said he
wasn't worried that Bechtel might eventually leave, although he said he
didn't like losing some of the company's local jobs. "As they have other
projects coming up, I would hope they'd replace these jobs with other
things," he said.

Bechtel, which has an executive on the chamber's board, has moved
divisions before, Blitch said, while retaining its San Francisco base.

"I don't think there's any concern about losing them at this point," he said.

E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker [at] sfchronicle.com.

©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ

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