AEDC work force faces reduction

Friday, June 12, 2009

President Obama's 2010 budget request includes a $24 million reduction in funding for contractor labor at the U.S. Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center, according to an AEDC news release.

The cuts would take effect Oct. 1, with the start of a new federal fiscal year.

Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA), a joint venture of Jacobs, Computer Sciences Corp. and General Physics, is the center's primary contractor. The company says it wants to use involuntary layoffs only as a last resort and wants to find alternate ways of addressing the cuts.

In a letter sent to all ATA employees Thursday, ATA General Manager Dr. David Elrod said, "As we work through our planning for next fiscal year, it is apparent that the workload and overall funding for ATA will be reduced from this year's levels. At this point, the total staffing requirements for FY10 appear to be 150 to 220 employees lower than this year's requirement. Attrition and reduction in overtime usage can lessen that gap slightly, but not eliminate it. The workload and our funding for next year are (as always) subject to further change in the months to come. There are factors which could cause the gap to increase and other factors which might cause it to shrink as we go forward. We will work to keep each of you informed as the workload matures and becomes more certain."

If layoffs are required, ATA says it will follow "a consistent and equitable method" for reducing and realigning its workforce.

ATA officials say they are working with ATA's parent companies to find opportunities for employees to transfer elsewhere.

AEDC, a collection of ground-based aerospace test facilities including wind tunnels and rocket engine test cells, is located in Coffee and Franklin counties; last fall, the AEDC Public Affairs office reported that 145 of the center's 2,742 employees were from Bedford County, which would rank AEDC among Bedford County's mid-sized industrial employers.

Comments

Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, please Login or Create an account first, and then you will be able to flag a comment as objectionable. Please also note that those who post comments on t-g.com may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.

Those 600,000 jobs that Obama is going to create or save by the end of the summer.... make that 600,220, Barack...

-- Posted by superx1250 on Fri, Jun 12, 2009, at 11:17 AM

It is a budget request, NOT a mandate. Love how Obama is always to blame for all that this economy is going through. Get over it, find YOUR solution.

-- Posted by Evil Monkey on Fri, Jun 12, 2009, at 11:39 AM

He said change just not what kind of change.

LOL, havent seen any jobs created around here only reductions or plant shutdowns.

-- Posted by johnnyreb on Fri, Jun 12, 2009, at 2:53 PM

well Evil I don't blame Obama for the economy but I certainly do blame him for lying about what he plans on doing.. spending Billions upon Billions of dollars and telling us it will create over a half of a million jobs...Ph-leze tell us where these jobs are?

-- Posted by Dianatn on Fri, Jun 12, 2009, at 4:23 PM

Get used to layoffs, there will be more to follow. The government claims a 9% unemployment rate when the actual U6 number is 16%. They claim 6 million are out of work but the actual figure is more like 10 million. The six million figure are just those fortunate enough to be collecting unemployment benefits. When one in six workers are not working our GDP will suffer fueling even more layoffs.

I find it humorous when people want to assign blame when all they have to do is look in a mirror. We are all to blame for this mess. Those that fueled their lifestyles with unsustainable levels of debt & those of us who continued to vote for the two major parties as they ran our country into the ground. I can't wait until they attempt to address the 56 trillion dollar "deficit" in the social security trust fund & medicare trust fund. It will make our 1 trillion dollar budget deficit look like chump change.

Sorry for the rant but the American Dream has turned into a nightmare. Plenty of blame to go around.

-- Posted by JohnC on Fri, Jun 12, 2009, at 8:52 PM

You are right about some things JohnC. People have to have common sense about what they can and cannot afford. When we went to buy our first home back in 1990 the bank told us we could afford a $100,000 home. I thought....ohhhh I don't think so. If my husband, the main breadwinner in the family became sick or got hurt we would be in trouble. We chose to buy a very small 2 bedroom home for $49,000...now this was in Illinois mind you so the prices were high already. Now it costs over $200,000 there for a regular 3 bedroom 2 bath home. When we moved to Tennessee in 1994 we bought small again and bought a 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath home for well under $49,000. Right now I am one of the unemployed and thank God my husband is still busy in the construction business. As far as voting for the two parties. What else can we do but vote for the lesser of two evils these days.

-- Posted by InTheMaking2 on Sat, Jun 13, 2009, at 12:04 PM

InTheMaking2,

The lessor of two evils is still evil. I have no expectations that my third party candidate will win but a vote for the status quo is a nod of approval to those destroying our country. The Democrats & Republicans only care about remaining in power. They will destroy our country in order to do it.

-- Posted by JohnC on Sat, Jun 13, 2009, at 1:30 PM