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Pat Duggins
Pat Duggins
Senior News Analyst
pduggins@wmfe.org


 

June 6, 2007—Well, no one seems to be warming the chairs at the bargaining table between United Space Alliance and nearly 600 workers threatening to go out on strike, maybe on Sunday.

The deal breaker came down to basic issues like salary, health care, pensions, and incentive pay, according to leaders at the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers. These workers do jobs like maintaining the crawler transporter which carries the Shuttle from the vehicle assembly building to the launch pad. Atlantis is already there, so United Space Alliance is sounding disappointed about the strike talk, but not worried.

But, what about Endeavour?

That spacecraft is scheduled for an early August blastoff, so the crawler comes into play in a few weeks for that shuttle’s trip to the pad. Also, this union has workers who operate the cranes inside the vehicle assembly building which will hoist Endeavour off the ground and gently connect it to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters before roll-out. United Space Alliance says it can find replacement workers for that. Union leaders say if the contractor isn’t worried about that idea, NASA should be.

More to come--

 

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