Feather-bedding on the Pads

What's wrong with the U.S. missile-base construction program? Last week, as the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Arkansas Democrat John McClellan, began hearings in Washington, it was evident that plenty is. Besides union troubles (TIME, Aug. 15), workmanship on the pads has often been shockingly sloppy; pieces of wooden plank, loose bolts, and cigarette butts have been found in the propellant-fuel storage tanks.

Labor disputes over what union does which jobs have produced continual strife, frequent strikes--and some blatant featherbedding. At Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., according to testimony by former Air Force Contracting Officer Euell Hodge, manifolds that are used to link up the hydraulic systems in the silo arrived from the factory already assembled. The pipefitters demanded that they be allowed to disassemble them and put them together again. Finally, they agreed to settle for "blessing" the manifolds-standing idly by the new equipment for the number of hours they would otherwise have spent assembling it--while, of course, drawing full pay.

Tremendous Loss. Since the construction program began 4 1/2 years ago, reported Major General William T. Thurman, an aide to the Air Force deputy chief of staff for materiel, labor disputes have caused 327 major work stoppages and strikes at 22 missile bases, including Cape Canaveral, accounting for the "tremendous" loss of 162,872 man-days. Despite the losses, the Air Force stoutly maintains that the construction program is on schedule to make bases operational. It has kept it that way by being flexible in its definition of what constitutes an operational base and by pumping funds, estimated conservatively at $16 million, into overtime pay. The result has been some of the most inflated wages in the U.S. Examples:

P: An apprentice electrician at Cape Canaveral drew $748 a week. The average weekly wage for electricians at Vandenberg Air Force Base is $510.

P: Unskilled laborers at Vandenberg earn as much as $287 weekly, truck drivers as much as $324, elevator operators as much as $360, and warehouse clerks as much as $262.

P: An electricians' foreman at Cape Canaveral earned $26,843 last year.

Loafing on the Job. Despite the high wages, Convair's Thomas O'Malley, the test officer in charge of firing the Project Mercury man-in-space shot, testified that workers at the Cape are loafing--with damaging consequences for the U.S. "If the jobs had been completed on the original schedule," he said, "we'd be noticeably farther ahead than we are today. I'm not talking in terms of days or weeks, but in terms of months.''

"Would we have a man in space?" asked Chairman McClellan.

"I am not qualified to say," answered O'Malley.

"But we'd be a whole lot closer?"

"We would."

Alarmed by the testimony, Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg last week set up a three-man team to try to resolve jurisdictional disputes between the unions. Until the situation is sorted out, he appealed to the unions to stop striking and stay on the job. Just in case, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service has put its men on a 24-hour alert to intervene instantly in any labor disputes at the missile bases.

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