Labor Union Opposes Obama's Plan for NASA

Labor Union Opposes Obama's Plan for NASA

Add the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) to those disagreeing with the President’s new plan for NASA. In a February 4 letter to President Obama available on the Orlando Sentinel’s website, IAM International President R. Thomas Buffenberger urged the President to reconsider outsourcing space travel to the private sector: “Thousands of high wage, high skill jobs critical to our long term economic future are at stake.” The labor union wants to “extend the space shuttle program and accelerate and modify the Ares and Orion program to meet NASA’s mission needs.”

Pulling no punches in the four page letter, Buffenberger says:

“The push to privatize space travel is similar to efforts to privatize other critical government services. These efforts are based on anti-government ideology and are promoted by companies that want to profit from government outsourcing. It defies common sense to believe that the way to save NASA money is to outsource even more when these same contractors are already frequently over budget and often involved in over-billing and even fraud.”

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