By Tough times for these guys that will be out of work:
The U.S. military’s apparent plan to lay off more than 400 Koreans employed on American bases in South Korea prompted protests outside at least two installations Friday.
“We’re like gum – they chew us up and then spit us out,” said Kim Chu Il, president of the Uijeongbu branch office of the U.S. Forces Korea Korean Employees Union. “Overnight, they have decided to take away the jobs of people who have worked (for USFK) for the past 10 or 20 years.
“It seems the U.S.-South Korea alliance really doesn’t exist,” he said.
Attempts this week to get the U.S. military to explain the details of its plans to lay off Korean employees on South Korean bases were unsuccessful.
However, in a Nov. 28 memorandum obtained by Stars and Stripes, U.S. Army Garrison – Red Cloud Commander William “Hank” Dodge informed union officials that effective Feb. 28, 2012, 199 positions will be abolished in Area I – the northernmost region of South Korea.
“Management will make every effort to place affected eligible employees into continuing position(s) in other organizations,” the memo said.
In addition, Kim said union officials have received notice that an additional 230 Korean base employees in Areas II, III and IV will also be let go on or about Feb. 28.
The 429 would represent about 3 percent of the 14,000 Koreans that Kim says are now employed on U.S. military bases in South Korea. They will come from a variety of occupations, including food service, administration and maintenance, he said. [Stars & Stripes]
I wonder how much money this is actually going save cutting the Korean employees when the Korean government pays most of their wages anyway as part of the cost sharing agreement with the US military? If USFK really wants to save money they have to look at the GS employees and contractors. They have already changed the contract for the gate guard personnel which appears to be done sloppily though it will save USFK money. The layoff of government civilians is coming to as the Pentagon has announced that by September 8,700 government workers will be laid off as well. Tough times.
9:15 am on December 11th, 2011 1
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If you hire, you’re considered to be evil imperialists. If you fire, you’re considered to be callous occupiers.
9:29 am on December 11th, 2011 2
I would love to see the numbers that show how contracting out the jobs of driving trucks, scrubbing pans, preparing meals and pulling guard duty save millions of dollars. I would imagine there was a bit of heartache over closing Clark & Subic Bay, so this seems to be considerably less severe. It’s not like we’re going to have GIs pulling KP or guard duty any time soon!
9:30 am on December 11th, 2011 3
BOTH US civilians and contractors have already been impacted with more cuts on the way. It’s DoD wide, not just USFK or Army. With the budget cuts, none of this should be a surprise.
3:11 pm on December 11th, 2011 4
Cuts are already taking place as stated by #3, if they continue unabated I can only predict that the “Hollow Force” will be more fact then fiction. Remember now that the Total force includes not just active duty but DAC, Contractors, Reserves and N Guard. You start drawing down one segment, at what point those the other segment start taking on duties they have no manpower to support, taking away from their primary duties.
3:21 pm on December 11th, 2011 5
The can wait in bread lines at the soup kitchens with the public school foreign English instructors…
4:07 pm on December 11th, 2011 6
Don’t dare say you know someone personally who is losing their job.
Guitard will call you a liar.
Just telling you how he is.
4:18 pm on December 11th, 2011 7
Clarification: We have a glut of KN employees in certain areas because of the previous changes and closures. Those area the positions that need a review/cut. DAC and US Contractor are being prioritized for cuts starting in 2013.
5:46 pm on December 11th, 2011 8
“If USFK really wants to save money they have to look at the GS employees and contractors.”
I’ll say it again. The DoD doesn’t hire contractors, they pay for services. It’s entirely up to the company for how many they will hire, how much money will be paid and what benefits they get. And they company’s will pay whatever they feel their employees are worth. The DoD has 0% control over my salary and benefits.
If the DoD wants to save money they can cut contracts they feel are unnecessary, and there is nothing wrong with that. We’re here to provide a service to our customers, if the customer feels they no longer want that service then we’ll provide it to someone else or provide a service they do want.
Now I know you got a chip on your shoulder about contractors, lords knows why, maybe one screwed you over on something in the past, but at least try to be honest about it.
6:07 pm on December 11th, 2011 9
… and they will be bringing more dependents over who will also be expecting to find work?
7:04 pm on December 11th, 2011 10
Its pretty hard to feel much appreciation for this in light of all the anti US protests and sentiments I keep hearing from South Korea. Are they aware of what its like to be in the US now….dealing with our job market? I was “spit out” after 16 years in my industry here which just means its time to find a new field of work for myself.
8:58 pm on December 11th, 2011 11
GI Korea wrote:
Who is actually calling the shots — maybe the Korean gov’t is (at least partially) behind this.
12:47 am on December 12th, 2011 12
At #2, The scale of loss in these civilian jobs pales in comparison to what civilian positions were lost when Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base were closed. (Clark closed November 26, 1991, wow, over 20 years now!) Clark had around 15,000 and Subic about 20,000 civilian employees. The Philippine economy had few opportunities for these displaced workers, which probably helped fuel the migration of Filipinos overseas for work. Korea could absorb any USFK civilian cuts easily as compared to the P.I.
2:52 am on December 12th, 2011 13
Pops wrote:
But how many of those Filipinos – who had relatively cushy jobs (by PI standards) – were willing to go to Qatar and scrub some Arab family’s toilet for 1/2 of what they were getting payed working at one of the US bases in the PI?
7:55 am on December 12th, 2011 14
@ 8 – I don’t know why you think I am anti-contractor when it is common knowledge that taking a hard look at the work force is a way to cut costs. When I was in Korea the contractors that supported my unit were excellent and provided a needed service my soldiers could not provide. Does that mean there isn’t some areas in Korea where contract personnel can be reduced to cut costs? I don’t know but I am sure USFK, like military commands back in the US is taking a hard look at where they can reduce labor costs.
Many military posts in the US have reduced the amount of contract civilian security personnel for example and have replaced them with soldiers at the gates. So the change in the gate guard contract in Korea is not surprising considering it is already happening in the US. Other typical contract positions such as janitors and grounds people I also see more and more soldiers doing because those jobs are being cut.
The commands cutting these jobs are not anti-contractor or anti-GS, they simply have reduced budgets and can only keep a certain amount of people and still have enough money left over to pay for non-labor costs that goes towards accomplishing the unit’s mission. If the Pentagon gets hit by the additional half a billion cut due to the super-committee not reaching a deal it is only going to get worse.
3:01 pm on December 12th, 2011 15
429 less people who can steal from the U.S.
5:22 pm on December 12th, 2011 16
#14,
“I don’t know why you think I am anti-contractor when it is common knowledge that taking a hard look at the work force is a way to cut costs.”
…and replacing it with temp workers employed by major contractors who are awarded the no-bid contracts?
6:39 pm on December 12th, 2011 17
@14,
Except the Government doesn’t hire / fire contractors they request services. A commander can’t walk into an organization, point at three contractors and say “your fired”. He can’t walk up to a PM and say “I want you to reduce your workforce by 20%, ect..”. What he (she) can do is say their rebidding the contract and looking for a minimum of 20% reduction in costs, or that there is an optional service they no longer desire to have and would like to trim that out of the contract.
The gate guard is a prime example. Do you think it was the US Government that said “you need to cut 30% of your work force”? No the US Government said it was reducing hours on the gates and that they were going to reduce the costs on the contract. The private company’s then made arrangements to reduce their employee base to be inline with the Governments request. They “downsized” to use modern terms. Soldiers are being used to man the gates now due to none of the private personal being available due to the strike. It’s significantly more expensive in the long run to keep solders on the gate, and not doing their jobs, then it is to use cheap local hires. Never see “using soldiers …” as a cost reduction method, it’s putting off short term costs for long term and will end up hurting the commanders overall mission readiness.
11:55 pm on December 12th, 2011 18
GS workers are way more expensive than contractors and since they are unionized they can get away with pretty much being slugs, collecting checks and benefits without a huge fear of losing their job.
either way there is plenty of fat to trim across DOD and here in USFK.
12:36 am on December 13th, 2011 19
“A commander can’t walk into an organization, point at three contractors and say “your fired”.”
That WOULD be odd.
I can hear the conversation now.
“Your fired.”
“My fired? I don’t even own a fired.”
“Ah. I meant ‘you’re fired’.”
“Oh. I see, now. But you can’t fire me.”
1:09 am on December 13th, 2011 20
Right or wrong, legal or not, a military commander most certainly can exert indirect pressure to get an individual fired.
4:32 am on December 13th, 2011 21
“Right or wrong, legal or not, a military commander most certainly can exert indirect pressure to get an individual fired.”
That happened with JCISA a few years back and it was pretty blatant, too. An AF col walked up to the PM and told him that he wanted specific people on the contract fired. And they were.
7:15 pm on December 13th, 2011 22
@20,21
Of course you have extremely grey areas like that. Did those individuals insult / verbally abuse one of their clients? Were they creating roadblocks or providing bad customer service? Those are valid reasons to have someone terminated or moved to a different contract. That being said, any officer attempting to randomly get someone “fired”, especially senior officers, for non-service related reasons runs into a vipers nest of legal woes. Officers are considered representatives of the US Government, attempting to be shady like that is a good way to find yourself remanded or forced out of that organization. It runs into the legal world of corruption and extortion. After all how do we know that that commander wasn’t trying to extort the PM or contracted individual.
Contracted personal provide a service for a fee. Treat it exactly like that and you’ll never have a problem.
8:33 pm on December 13th, 2011 23
vipers nest of legal woes??
Maybe on paper. But my experience has been that contractors get fired (or better stated — “pressured” to go find a job elsewhere) for things like perception/personality conflict issues – and no one on the gov’t or contractor side seems to think much of it.
The reality is that if a senior person on the gov’t side doesn’t like you – they can make you disappear from the work site. It’s as simple as that. And if you want to go the legal route – hopefully you’ve saved up some money because you’ll probably be on your own — unless the company you work for is willing to stick up for you – but they still have to maintain a good relationship with the customer – so that’s hit or miss. And if word gets out that you’re a “trouble maker” – good luck finding another contractor job anywhere on that base (Stateside) or in that country (overseas).
What I’ve seen is when people get the word that they are not wanted, they quit “of their own accord” and go find a job elsewhere. When they are asked why they left their previous job, they usually say something like, “I wanted a more challenging position” or something like that. But if they try to hang on until the end at the old job and force the issue – they are going to get unofficially blacklisted among local contract employers. So the smart thing is to bite the bullet and go find a job elsewhere.
I’ll caveat all this by saying – this is what I’ve seen happen. I’m not saying it’s the norm.
7:54 pm on December 15th, 2011 24
GUITARD #13,
Do you have any “HARD NUMBERS” to back up your statements??
Like GPI in the PI vs GPI in Kuwait??? GPI=Gross Personal Income.
Or are you just “Bloviating”?
..As usual.
8:10 pm on December 15th, 2011 25
GUITARD #23,
The only contractors I ever saw lose their jobs was because of their boss. Gov guys weren’t involved.
However at contract changeeover..another story. Lots of guys lost their jobs. If they had pissed the Gov guys off.
Generally if a contractor p’od a Gov Guy..he gets transferred.
I knew a KN a few years ago who was for Rho, the anti American candidate. I pointed out the guy was anti American and might lose his(USFK) job. His cool answer was.. “I will find another job!
“Time to find another job..buddy.”
