NASA ARC Union Responds: Your vision of the perfect center

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004

To: shubbard@mail.arc.nasa.gov

From: …@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Subject: Your vision of the perfect center

Cc: “Stan C. Newberry”

September 15, 2004

Dear Center Director Hubbard,

In your All-Hands meeting September 2nd, you announced to
Ames employees that, with respect to privatization, you had
“not volunteered us to be at the pointy end of the sword.”
However, on June 7th 2004 (before the Aldridge report was
made public), in a presentation to NASA Administrator Sean
O’Keefe at HQ entitled “Ames: A Center Transformed: Past,
Present, & Future,” you proposed that Ames be transformed
into “A Perfect Center” by converting it to a Federal
Research Corporation (not an FFRDC) and transferring Civil
Servants to this private-sector entity. One of the
explicitly stated goals in your presentation is to provide
“flexibility in staffing w/o Civil Service”. You concluded
to Mr. O’Keefe that ARC was “ready to proceed with detailed
study given your approval.” We have posted the relevant
view-graphs on our website (URL:
http://www.afeu.org/scans/hubbard-2004-06-07.pdf ). [see below]

Please clarify your position on privatizing Ames. If you
still support conversion of ARC to a private entity, then
please say so and support this opinion with clear and
compelling facts. If you have changed your mind since
June, and are opposed to it or have become noncommittal,
then please say so and explain why you previously thought
it was wise to put ARC at higher risk for privatization by
your proposal to Mr. O’Keefe. Either way, your Civil
Servant employees, who stand to lose their job security and
many of their benefits, deserve a forthright explanation.

Ames Federal Employee Union is pleased that you took the
time to speak to your employees two weeks ago, but in these
trying times, this should only be the beginning. We again
urge you to engage your rank-and-file workforce and its
Union representatives in an open and frank dialog about
your vision for the future of Ames before moving forward
with transformation proposals to the Administrator, so that
perfection is not solely in the eyes of upper level
management.

Sincerely,

Marc Cohen, President

Lee Stone, Vice President for Legislative Affairs

Paul Davis, Vice President for Negotiations

Suzanne Meyer, Vice President for Membership

Roger Ashbaugh, Vice President for Publicity

Chris Knight, co-chair Partnership Council

Ames Federal Employees Union

International Federation of Professional and Technical

Engineers, Local 30