Inside KSC News Feeds
09-13-2008, 07:32 AM
It appears more than 10 percent of the 2,800 workers currently employed by Space Gateway Support at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station will lose their jobs as contracts shift to new employers.
SGS handed out formal layoff notices Thursday in advance of the Oct. 1 switchover as 15 companies take over contracts to provide support services to KSC and the Cape.
An estimated 300 or more employees will not be picked up in the new hiring, but the final total of lost jobs won't be known until Oct. 1, when the new contractors take over, SGS spokesman Sam Gutierrez said.
"We absolutely do not know how many people have actually been picked up," Gutierrez said.
He pointed out that the loss of 300 jobs, with average salaries of $50,000 per year, could mean a $15 million blow to the Space Coast economy.
"Will those contractors realize that they need more people? We hope so," Gutierrez said.
NASA spokesmen would not provide totals on the number of workers to be laid off or, even, if the new arrangement would be more cost effective.
Security guards apparently are one group of workers that will weather the contract change.
"It appears that when the music stops, we'll probably have enough chairs," said Jerry Heyman, president of the Security Police and Fire Professionals of America local 127. He believes that the two companies taking over security contracts will hire virtually all of the 300 security officers at the Cape and at KSC.
That's due in no small part to the voluntary departure of about 30 security force employees, he added.
The unbundling reverses an action taken in 1998 that brought services at the Cape and at KSC under Space Gateway Services.
Some SGS employees already have been notified that a new contractor will hire them, and some contractors are still hiring.
More... (http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080913/NEWS02/809130325/1007/rss06)
SGS handed out formal layoff notices Thursday in advance of the Oct. 1 switchover as 15 companies take over contracts to provide support services to KSC and the Cape.
An estimated 300 or more employees will not be picked up in the new hiring, but the final total of lost jobs won't be known until Oct. 1, when the new contractors take over, SGS spokesman Sam Gutierrez said.
"We absolutely do not know how many people have actually been picked up," Gutierrez said.
He pointed out that the loss of 300 jobs, with average salaries of $50,000 per year, could mean a $15 million blow to the Space Coast economy.
"Will those contractors realize that they need more people? We hope so," Gutierrez said.
NASA spokesmen would not provide totals on the number of workers to be laid off or, even, if the new arrangement would be more cost effective.
Security guards apparently are one group of workers that will weather the contract change.
"It appears that when the music stops, we'll probably have enough chairs," said Jerry Heyman, president of the Security Police and Fire Professionals of America local 127. He believes that the two companies taking over security contracts will hire virtually all of the 300 security officers at the Cape and at KSC.
That's due in no small part to the voluntary departure of about 30 security force employees, he added.
The unbundling reverses an action taken in 1998 that brought services at the Cape and at KSC under Space Gateway Services.
Some SGS employees already have been notified that a new contractor will hire them, and some contractors are still hiring.
More... (http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080913/NEWS02/809130325/1007/rss06)