Stalled Contract Negotiations at Kennedy Space Center

Floor Speech

STALLED CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- (House of Representatives - October 16, 2007)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to say that some people in our Nation are taking notice of what is happening at the Kennedy Space Center with the stalled contract negotiations between USA Alliance, which is United Space Alliance, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, among the most talented and trained workers in our Nation.

USA Space Alliance is a company that was formed from Boeing and Lockheed, major defense contractors for our Nation, which also have huge space contracts. Their executives are very well paid, and these are companies essential to our Nation's defense.

But what is happening is that in these negotiations, strangely, the new demands that are being asked by these companies of the workers is that they have, the workers will have no pensions. Can you believe this, that workers who are involved in important NASA programs, particularly as we transition to Aries and Orion programs, that the conditions of work for people at the Kennedy Center will not be the same as they have been since we began the space program?

NASA gets about $16 billion a year. Without question, the United States of America is the world leader in space exploration. And we are a leader because of the bravery of those who are involved in the work, as well as their intelligence and their fine workmanship and workwomanship.

We shouldn't do anything to diminish this asset, this national asset, particularly when the Chinese are breathing down our necks and are able to hit targets in space already.

And yet, what we see happening is that the workers and future workers that will be at NASA's subcontractors will not have pensions?

This is very interesting, particularly because the individual running USA, United Space Alliance, Richard Covey, a very well-known American who's been an astronaut in many prior programs, gets about three retirement checks already, may be getting four.

The first one is a public pension that comes from his work and his patriotism in the Air Force of our country. So he gets that check. He gets a government pension from his work in the NASA program. And he had been a part of Boeing Corporation prior to his movement over to USA, United Space Alliance, and he gets a retirement check from that plus all the stock bonuses.

We have heard this before, that the people at the very top take enormous amounts? And the workers who are doing the actual work of retrieving the space launches, getting them ready are told, well, you won't get any retirement. What kind of attitude does that produce on the job in work that is truly dangerous, where lives are at stake, where America should seek the best and want the best and reward the best?

I was thinking today of the Kennedy Space Center named after President John Kennedy, who did so very much to inspire the Nation to treat all people equally and to better themselves, would have this happening at the Kennedy Space Center.

Defined benefit pension plans are the bedrock of retirement security, and over 40 million workers and retirees rely on them. And they give someone economic security to go to work every day and know that your life matters and that when it comes time for you to leave that position that you will have a retirement where you don't have economic worry. What is happening out at Kennedy now is a direct attack on Americans' retirement security. It sends a clear signal that this administration and its NASA administrator and all the subcontractors that it hires, including USA, support the elimination of secure guaranteed defined benefit pension plans, and for no workers, no pension plans. How's that for a deal? What are we going to do, go back to before 1940 again in this country?

We built a great Nation when America had a system where workers could be confident that their wages would increase with increasing productivity and that their retirement years would be secure. I would just say that the Nation is taking very close notice of an agency that gets a $16 billion budget whose top executives all get their pensions and now who hire subcontractors who are telling the very people who have their hands on the equipment down at the Kennedy Space Center that, sorry, you don't get the same type of consideration by the Government of the United States.

I would ask Mr. Covey and the folks at USA Space Alliance to pay close attention because Congress is paying close attention.

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