Labor & Employment Law

Space: The Last Frontier for Outsourcing

By Mike Hall

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.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).