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Personnel News

A RIF-ed Employee Speaks Up

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 20, 2005

Reader comment: “I am one of the 18 RIF-ed employees at NASA-Langley Research Center. There seems to be some double dealing in the whole matter.

I myself have 18 years at LaRC. Therearealso 3 others in the machine shopthat were RIF-ed and they had anywhere from 19 to 25 years service. We, for the most part came in through the apprentice program. Everywhere else on the center, save the Fabrication Division, apprentices served 6 month rotations at various locations around the center. We were told that our jobs involved such intensive training that we would spend the entire five years working in Fabrication due to the fact that it would take that long to learn all the specialized equipment and how to run it.

There are several employees that will be moving into the machine shop with no prior experience and with much less time at NASA. We were told today (by Human Resources)that our management i.e. Stewart Harris, Jim Bell and Dave Rollinssetthe criteria for the selection process not HR. When asked why we could not move to another part of Fab (the model shop, or sheet metal fabrication where there are those with less time we could bump) the reply was that we had no experience over there precluding a move In fact, at least two of the RIF-ed employees(myself included) have worked in the model shop.

So where is the truth in this, you can move into the machine shop with no prior experience but not out of it the same way. I might also add that 2 employees from the machine shop will be going to the model shop with no prior experience. It seems that there has been some type of sleight of hand in the process. There was no straight process cutting the lowest 18 in the division. If the RIF had been done fairly there would be no point of contention but it seems that management has once again protected their favorites.

Attention needs to bebrought to this situation so that we can be heard and treated fairly. Please address this issue in some shape or form.

Sincerely,

a disgruntled NASA employee”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.