You may have heard that the next Shuttle launch is scheduled for Friday, June 8, at 7:38 p.m. Eastern time. You may not have heard that the United Space Alliance Space Shuttle workers may go on strike the day before the launch.
This won’t affect the launch, since these workers apparently don’t work on that aspect of the Shuttle (according to the artile linked above, they provide "various support services such as machinists, electric technicians, air-conditioning mechanics, painters and elevators technicians"). The rhetoric is standard: the union says the deal offered by USA is substandard, while USA says it’s fair, blah blah blah. I never trust press releases or quotations in matters such as these, and prefer to assume that everyone is being a jerk until evidence turns up otherwise. I guess I’ve had too much background in both labor and management — this isn’t science, where ideas get a fair shake, but PR, where people jockey for position and try to make themselves look good. A skeptical — nay, jaundiced — eye is required.
Anyway, STS 117 is go for launch on Friday, and I’ll blog about it when/if it happens, and I’ll use my Twitter page to live update it!
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
Cool, they’re actually launching at a time I can watch! And, for a bonus, June 8 is my last day at my current crappy job that I hate. What a send-off.
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 am
A Strike during a launch? I’m very unsympathetic.
I understand that the workers at the USA companies want to have a contract that benefits them just like anyone else, but it is disheartening that they cannot be willing to put it off for a few days for the launch. I’m glad it will not affect it.
Unions generally talk about how their workers are committed to a quality product and a fair deal for all. But here, the shuttle is a very expensive project for the tax payers and a system with goals of advancing science and technology.
The fact that they would consider doing something as rash as a strike at a time when it could affect the space program so deeply as well as the potential safety and success of the mission is really something I cannot have any sympathy for.
Would it kill them to simply say “We are considering a strike to show our disagreement with the contract but will not do so at a time when it might have a negative impact on the nation and the lives and safety of our astronauts”
Oh I forgot… it’s just plain greed.
June 3rd, 2007 at 11:26 am
Do some people not read all of what they’re commenting on? The article clearly says it will not affect the launch. The details of the contract are not given so who can tell if they are being offered a fair contract or if they too are seeing their pay base cut back at a time when the cost of all the basic needs are being increased. Anyone checked the price of gas, food, housing lately?
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm
A strike at this time won’t affect the launch and it is the best time to publicly draw attention. it has been well calculated by the unions. Chill winston!! people will be fine. many people deserve fair pay all over the world and I dont knowabout America but In the UK unions will only advocate a strike when all other options have been exhausted. Nobody likes strikes as you are not paid for them.
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:14 pm
No, it won’t affect the launch directly, however it’s still a @#%#@@! thing to do when they have enough to worry about at Nasa besides this and certainly don’t need even the possibility of having to have people work overtime or anything like that during a launch.
And in the US, it’s pretty rare for a Union to go on full blown strike, because usually it hurts both sides and ends up getting some of the members to split or for the public to loose patients etc etc. Yes, it’s got many bad sides that would mean it would be used as a last resort.
But then again, most unions would rather bring a company to it’s knees or cost taxpayers a lot of money than face something like the words: “If you don’t think you’re getting paid enough, maybe you should start looking for another job? You want more pay than the market is offering you? Well great. I want a toilet made of solid gold, it’s not in the cards.”
June 3rd, 2007 at 7:13 pm
But Drbuzz0, you could equally well ask the question the other way around, couldn’t you? “If you think the union’s demands are unreasonable, maybe you should start looking for other employees?” Everyone is greedy, its just that some people or groups are more effective at negotiating than others.
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Oh absolutely, I think businesses ought to fire anyone who would pull that kind of BS. The problem is that Unions get special protection and they can declare a place a “Union Shop” meaning all the employees have to join the union.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:42 am
If not for the unions, this would still be a nation of lassaiz faire capitalists, ripping off every worker and sending them into unsafe working conditions.
Progress didn’t come easily. It required sacrifices by tens of millions of workers to gain a more fair distribution of wealth. It’s easy to complain that workers want too much. The one doing that complaining usually has WAY too much,,,stuff,,,and thinks they actually deserve it.
Gary 7
June 4th, 2007 at 7:54 am
I tend to side with unions until the evidence comes in, mostly because I know what management generally wants – more hours of work at less pay and fewer safety measures(ad infinitum), so they can keep more profit for themselves. A union is the only defense that the working class has against the monsters with the money, save a swift and brutal uprising against the robber barons and their worthless progeny, and nobody wants that.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Wow, Gary.. it’s amazing that I’ve managed to have some pretty decent jobs without being in a union. Ever considered that the reason work conditions might have been bad would have something to do with corruption in the government, an early industrial economy, mostly uneducated workers? Of course, the over-simplistic history books will say it’s unions to the rescue!
I love this way “Distribution of Wealth” gets injected into things. Lets be a bit more accurate and replace it with “Trying to make life fair for everyone.” Yes, there are haves and have nots and some people will work hard and never become rich while others are born into it. It’s about the worst system around: Except for the others.
The “Other system” is nobody is rich (except the party bosses) and everyone has an equal distribution of poverty. They sometimes call this a “Workers paradise” and they tried it in Russia a while back. Also in china, though they’ve pretty much decided they’re not even going to bother pretending anymore/
A union is the only defense against “robber barons”? Puh-lease. Do you honestly want to get the whole class warfare thing going again? Ok sure, we can tax the rich into non existance, thus removing all incentive for enterprise and investment and assuring that nobody has a job ever.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
DrbuzzO, not sure that showing examples which are at the extreme ends of the spectrum, is any more convincing than some of the rhetoric espoused by the usual combatants, on either side.
I always have the end game in sight when considering these strikes, because after all, one has to go back and work with the “other” side. If not, then the business fails and the employees are out of a job, and so is management.
Ivan.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:06 am
i agree with the workers…they deserve to get millions instead of the poor get poorer the rich get richer it should be the poor get richer and rich get poorer…btw i dont mind that lady loves horses enuff 2 make love to it…
June 8th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Well, in Florida, which is a “Right to Work” state, there is no such thing as a “Union Shop”. The unions in this state are hardly the crushing behemoths that those in, say, the Northeast are.
Without the details, there really isn’t any way to know whether either side is being fair. Workers unionize for good cause, management detests unions for good cause, and “fair is somewhere in between – which is what contract negotiations are all about.