A dozen AFGE members representing Defense Department depot and arsenal workers highlighted the importance of the organic industrial base in a series of meetings with senior Pentagon officials during the 2017 DoD Maintenance Symposium, held Dec. 4-7 in Salt Lake City.
AFGE was invited by DoD leadership to attend the annual symposium, where uniformed military, senior civilians, and industry representatives meet to discuss the future of DoD’s maintenance industrial base.
AFGE met with senior leaders from the Army, Air Force, and Pentagon to discuss issues including data rights, depot core and 50/50, and provisions in the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act expanding the definition and scope of commercial items and the impact on depot maintenance and the overall industrial base.
DoD officials across the board shared a renewed commitment to the role that the organic base has in ensuring the readiness of the military force – a positive sign that our message is resonating with the right people.
AFGE bargaining unit members at Local 916 at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma were honored when the 567th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Tinker’s Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex won the Secretary of Defense’s Robert T. Mason Award for excellence in depot maintenance in 2017.
The team accomplished superior depot maintenance by producing a record-breaking 25 B-1 bombers during the previous fiscal year.
The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex is one of the largest units in the Air Force Materiel Command, with a team of more than 9,800 military and civilian professionals. The complex performs depot maintenance, repair, and modifications on an array of aircraft, engines, and weapons systems for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and foreign militaries.
As we remember the tragedy that happened in Oklahoma City 23 years ago, we need to do more than just honor the memory of those we lost. We must do everything we can to prevent it from happening again.
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As their wages lagged behind, blue collar workers left their old jobs to take General Schedule jobs, causing major gaps in their career fields. The exodus of skilled hourly workers became so bad that the Army ended up outsourcing certain jobs as they were not able to fill the positions.
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For years, the correctional workers in the federal Bureau of Prisons have done more with less. Facing the threat of even more staffing cuts to their workforce, the Council of Prison Locals held a Senate roundtable to make it clear: fewer correctional workers mean more dangerous prisons and less safe communities.
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