NASA Workers Launch Effort to Save Jobs
Workers, small business owners, elected officials and community activists today launched a national campaign to save as many as 7,000 jobs at NASA and thousands more in central Florida.
The Obama administration, in an effort to balance the federal budget, has proposed outsourcing most of the program that includes lunar landers, moon bases, and the replacement for space shuttle to other governments and private companies.
Such a move would devastate central Florida, which already has been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. Without a new commitment to extend the space program, central Florida stands to lose 7,000 jobs at NASA and another 16,000 public- and private-sector jobs could be jeopardized. Members of several unions work in the program, including Machinists (IAM), Transport Workers (TWU), Electrical Workers (IBEW) and others.
Speaking at a rally in Titusville, Fla., not far from Kennedy Space Center, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told a crowd of nearly 2,000:
This is no time to tear out the foundation of this community. At a time when so many Florida breadwinners are out of work or working part time, when over half a million in Florida have lost their homes, does it really make sense to pile on more misery?
NASA Budget Cuts Could Cost 1,200 Jobs
The members of Transport Workers (TWU) Local 525 have a front-row seat to America’s space program. The local represents 1,200 ground crew and emergency support staff of both manned and unmanned rockets on Cape Canaveral. But proposed budget cuts threaten those good union jobs and endanger the space exploration program overall.
In the video above, members of Local 525 tell their story and explain why cutting NASA’s space exploration budget is not a good idea.
Space: The Last Frontier for Outsourcing
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Check out this video of workers at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center who talk about the thrill, responsibility and pride of playing important roles in the space shuttle missions.
The members of the Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been part of the nation’s space program from its earliest days through the space shuttle program, which flies its final mission in September.
With the end of the shuttle program, some 7,000 workers, half the space center’s workforce, face layoffs Oct. 1. Yet the United States is outsourcing manned space flight to Russia, depending upon that country’s 40-year-old Soyuz spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.
Mary Ann Jackson, a field systems specialist at Kennedy Space Center and member of Local 2088, tells the Electrical Worker Online:
There are so many people affected by all this. It’s sad to think we might not have jobs soon and tough to deal with where our work is going.
Click here to read the IBEW’s in-depth look at the end of the space shuttle program and its impact on the workers who have been a vital part from lift off to touch down.
