NASA busy with space schedule, but has labor troubles on Earth

William Atkins
Monday, 04 June 2007 21:00

Science - Space

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Already three months behind in its 2007 schedule after its March 15th delay of STS-117 due to a disastrous hailstorm, NASA hopes to pick up its mission schedule with the launching of Space Shuttle Atlantis on June 8, 2007.

However, the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers union is planning a strike involving nearly 600 space shuttle program workers at the Kennedy Space Center. The union represents the spaceflight operations employees of the United Space Alliance (USA). The company is one of the largest space operations companies in the world.

Most of the contractor employees at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center are USA employees. The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation own USA jointly. In all, USA employs around 10,000 people in the states of Florida, Texas, and Alabama, and the Washington, D.C. area.

Primarily, USA possesses a NASA contract—called the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC)—to operate and process the fleet of Space Shuttles and to handle operations for the International Space Station.

Talks between union officials with the Bargaining Committee for Local 2061 (Cocoa, Florida) and representatives of USA resumed on May 29, 2007, with respect to a proposed new contract. However, ratification of the contract, which was voted on Saturday, June 2, 2007, did not succeed.

The contract was cited as being “substandard” on the union side and “fair, competitive and responsive” from the company side.

The primary issues for these 600 workers center around job security and retirement benefits as NASA shifts its work force from Space Shuttle operations to the new Orion/Ares operations over the next three years. (Space Shuttle operations are planned to conclude in 2010 and Orion/Ares operations are scheduled to start up in 2015.)

Negotiators have instituted a five-day cooling-off period for both sides of the issue.

These 600 aerospace workers plan to strike as early as June 10th, two days after the planned launch of STS-117 and its Space Shuttle Atlantis crew going to the International Space Station for NASA's continuing assembly missions.

NASA and USA contend that a strike will not affect its support of the mission. However, NASA admits that a drawn-out strike could affect the processing of the next mission—STS-118 and the Space Shuttle Endeavour—as these striking workers help to join the orbiter with the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) and the eternal tank (ET). STS-118 is currently scheduled to launch on October 9, 2007.

USA officials state that even with a strike, they will have enough fully certified, trained, and qualified people to perform all of its functions with regard to current and future flights of the NASA Space Shuttles.

Only the future will decide if NASA will be able to keep on schedule safely along with resolving this strike with part of its KSC contractor employee work force.