Friday, October 08, 2010

USA announces January layoffs

United Space Alliance announced today that a January 7 layoff will affect 171 workers in Florida and 320 workers companywide.

"These are the early numbers. They most definitely will change a bit," USA spokesperson Tracy Yates said.

The company will allow employees to volunteer to be laid off. Some 40 percent of about 900 USA workers laid off from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 1 had volunteered. USA now employs slightly more than 4,100 workers at KSC.

A small layoff is expected in April.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

o bama?

Anonymous said...

bummer

Anonymous said...

I know the trolls will be about soon enough but I thought I would relate a simple example of something to think about when you start trashing the folks out at KSC. A friend of mine has a wife that is severely disabled and ineligible for SSDI (a whole awful story in itself). Since the shuttle program is ending the contractor they are working for (USA) is changing their medical benefits to try and be competetive (which at this point seems very unlikely). The costs along with no raise last year has my friend facing the choice of taking the lay off because the increase in cost of medical and co-pays will lower the pay to the level of unemployment. Their medical expenses are at the point where they cannot manage to pay their bills as it is. In a nut shell he will be better off, for the short term, to be on unemployment and have his wife on medicaid and hope that he can find a job with better benefits so they will cover his wifes pre-existing conditons. Unfortunately they do not have the help to allow for an 80 hour work week (he must do 90% of the chores since his wife cannot physically do them).

So when you feel the urge to point out that everyone knew this was coming, at least give a pause and think of those that have had misfortune happen unexpectedly. No matter what you plan for, terrible things can happen and no planning can cover all possiblilities.

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous at 6:07 PM Very nicely written and said.

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."
We all seem to have times when we forget that our words have terrific influence on those around us. The spoken word is extremely powerful. Kind words can often be healing to others; especially those families who have to go through this difficult transition.

Anonymous said...

I would suggest your friend hold on to his job. Medicaid is not known for paying for specialized needs. In this area a specialist, if thats what his wife needs, may not found and travel to another county maybe necessary. Even tho the increase in medical may cut his pay to equal unemployment, it will still be much better coverage than medicaid. And in most cases they are going to look at income the past 6 months which will put him over the income limit and he may have to go with cost sharing, which could be just as much.

Anonymous said...

Don't you LOVE Republican "Trickle Down" No jobs, No Homes, and saying "NO" to stimulus and recovery. Bummer republicans have the Rich loving it. Don't you wish you were a Rich republican saying No to Americans.

Anonymous said...

6:37 - yeah, they've been out of control of anything for four years now. None of this is cause by the democrats running the show at all, right?

Anonymous said...

6:37 is the poster child for stupidity without a doubt

Anonymous said...

Tell your fiend with the disabled wife good luck, welcome to the world the rest of us have to live in! There are no special job fairs, the government did not spend $75.000 per laid off worker, the were no severance pay issues, only severance, we didn't have $50 an hour jobs to sit on our lazy arses with a range of benefits, we are nothing, you folks are so great, just the way it is I guess. Now you fockers know what the rest of us have had to deal with since 2008. Sure sucks being a 'spce worker' and having to have your feet touch the ground of the real world, doesn't it. Boo hoo, cry me a river. 8,000 laid off is a far cry from the over 25,000 construction workers that have met that fate in 2007-2009 in this county alone, funny we are never even mentioned but are the hardest hit sector of unemployment. Got news for all of you, no job comes with a guarantee of a lifetime of employment, period, not mine, not yours. At least you people knew this all was coming back when your hero, GeeI'mDumbYeah decided to retire the shuttle almost a decade ago, quit your whining, act the Pee Pottier Repubelickkins you are and pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get over it. Have no bootstraps? Well, welcome again to the REAL world...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 8:22 - I don't know where you are getting your $75,000 per laid off worker or $50 an hour job but I can say that I know for sure you are absolutely wrong. My husband worked up there for 10 years and we weren't even close to $50 an hour. He didn't even bring home half of that. To address the $75,000; that is also clearly wrong and not even close. For many, maybe a fraction of this. The employee receives a weeks pay for every year employed and if they have critical skills, they receive that compensation as well. There seems to be a misconception that the people that work up there are highly paid. Like I said, this is a misconception. I am able to bring home $400 a week after taxes and paying for my own medical insurance. This isn't counting paying for the rest of my families insurance. Is this really enough to support a family of 4? I really don't think so. The majority of the "civil service" employees are the ones that receive the brunt of the pay as well as the benefits. I like to refer to them as professional, over-paid paper-weights. These civil-service employees receive twice the pay as the average contractor. I would say that about 45% of them are actually retirement age however because they are government workers, they aren't encouraged to retire. There are many up there that are atleast 75 years old and still holding. The majority of the time these people are out roaming the halls and socializing. Like the saying goes, "80% of the work is completed by 20% of the workers".

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the world of Barack Obama.

10% unemployment is a reality.

Goal is to make everybody dependent on the government. Ugh!!!

Anonymous said...

8:22 - Have a wonderful life. Income for his household is $8.65 per hour. His wife was struck down by a infection after a surgery (5 years ago). As awful as a person as you seem to be I would never wish that upon you or anyone of like mind. I was simply stating that not everyone that works out there makes huge money. To the best of my knowledge other than his severence (no critical skills/completion bonus) they have nothing because of an unplanned illness. I've seen so many of your type of posting about how priviliged and coddle everyone is that worked for NASA and was only illustrating that like any industry there are humans that have horrible things happen. He has worked there for 10 years, knew about the end of the program but could not plan on what had happened. I hope you have a pleasant rest of your life, however bitter you are. May you enjoy a healthy life and those you love the same. You have shown ignorance in the pay scales for 'space workers' like many others. No pity is expected, my message was not for people who think like you. It was for those that really want to know the human side of some of the people that are affected by these lay-offs.

Anonymous said...

If you have worked your whole life and never been in the system for medicaid or foodstamps, you can basically hang it up!!!! If you own anything or just need and stepping stone to get you back on your feet, that is the way to go!!!!! they get all into your buisness and dont help anyways!!!! I have 5 kids and 1 fulltime job at 16 per hr, my husband gets laid off and get unemployment, so I take the time fill it all out and they tell me oh yeah you make under the limit......but they failed to tell me after the limit they also do a percentage... laughing, always a catch!!! Now keep in mind I have 2 children that the state placed with me and I get no money for them!!!! I still didnt quilify....go fig... its all a control game to them keep you where they know all about you and they decide what you get and not get, I didnt even get medicaid for the kids. The system is for the ones who wont help themselves!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

6:37 PM - Yea, there are no rich democrats or BIG TIME rich democrat donors. I love the way you guys constantly spew that lie, hoping that if you say it enough, people will think it is true. You guys have just as many rich, fat cats in your corner as the republicans do. Can you say George Sorros? He is the king puppet master, pulling the strings and filthy, nasty rich. Besides, it has been almost 4 years since a republican has had any ability to stop, control or slow down anything in Washington. That is another lie, republicans could not stop anything right now if they wanted to. The democrat’s problem is, they cannot get a consensus in their own party. If they all lined up, they could ram anything they wanted down our throats right now. Don't give me this republican garbage, take responsibility for this mess.

Anonymous said...

8:22 Your 'real world' problem of whining about construction jobs is pretty sad. The housing market took a dump several years ago. Sounds like you've been hanging around instead of pulling up your boot straps. The fact that you believe no one at the space center works AND they all earn $50 dollars an hour makes me question your knowledge. No one, and I do mean no one, I know earns $50 an hour where I work. No one earns $30 and hour. I know of no one that has gotten 75,000 for being laid off. (Based on simple math, the poster about will get about 8000 BEFORE taxes after working there 10 years). If you are jealous of people who found jobs that paid decent wages with good benefits then you have two options, get a better job or whine about your low paying job with no benefits. Sour grapes anyone?

Anonymous said...

The majority of the time these people are out roaming the halls and socializing. That sounds about right for USA sector of NASA. I know since I worked at NASA over 24 years. The severance pay was worth the stay 1 week pay per current salary so I won't be complaining. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work there working my way up the ladder over so many years. I am ashamed to hear such whining from my co-workers who can't realize how fortunate they were to work on these space missions. We all knew these missions can be stopped anytime before President Bush & Obama canceled the programs. What people don't realize is there were many other NASA leaders involved in the decision too and the President just formally announces those decisions. So quit the Blame game & get back on your feet again. We've all had hardships & life changing experiences sometime in our lives. So quit whining as its embarrassing from what I once thought to be highly educated co-workers.

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous 12:42 PM Its exactly what many have been saying all along. The sitting around jobs with not much progress are finally coming to an end. Time to get real jobs folks and work for a living. In other words, some of these laid off workers will first need to come back down to Earth from their space walks to the real world. Best wishes in your retirement or new job and thanks for not being part of majority of NASA whiners. Its time to move on and realize there's other news too besides NASA layoffs, like improvements in public education and safe neighborhoods.

Anonymous said...

I think the shuttle program produced a lot of jobs where people appear to be just "sitting around". The critical skills developed during the course of the program are necessary to have availabe for flight support and general problem solving. It's a challenge to keep these people busy all the time as the program won't fund side studies or analysis that could affect a database or the way hardware is handled, thus flight. Add to this the depletion of senior staff to retirement, at least the ones that were in the program in the early days and helped to develop a lot of the technology who could define meaningful tasks, and you have a lot of people funded by the shuttle that are needed for flight support, but don't have much to do between flights. Just the way things have evolved. Unfortuately, there isn't another program to pick up the slack.

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous 12:42 PM I think you meant to say that all the laid off workers will get severance pay amounting to 1 week's current salary for Each Year they were employed, up to 26 weeks. Many have worked there over 30 years. They also get help preparing resumes and transitioning into another career. NASA received $15 Million from the Federal Govt to help all of them search for new jobs and they all will get additional training once the shuttle program ends. Sounds good and many don't seem to be worrying about leaving only that they will have to make a job change that won't pay as well.

Anonymous said...

Actually, USA could stand to lay off 300 employees. Since the 900 left a little while ago, many more USA workers just sit around and socialize. The work load isn't there to sustain the present head count. It's disheartening for the hard workers at USA to work their butts off while they witness many fellow USA workers sitting around goofing off.

Plus, USA management has a reputation for playing favorites and allow their employees to sit around and goof off.

Lay off 300!!

Anonymous said...

8:22 - How would you like to be a "space worker" married to a construction worker? Sounds sweet doesn't it. I truly hope you do not own a small business, restaurant, bar or are a medical provider because when my job is gone so is my "space money".





;22

Anonymous said...

5:53 you are a complete retard if you think we are sitting on our youknowhats all day. i don't know about other management by mine is not the sit back type. we have to be jumping through hoops for this person or we get written up.

Anonymous said...

Great Post! It helped me to make sense of some of the issues with the subject.