Training planes remained grounded at Vance Air Force Base, Okalahoma, on Wednesday as a strike continued between union workers and the base’s major contractor and 3 subcontractors.br /US Sen. Jim Inhofe, who traveled to Vance to help with negotiations, said, in a statement, that an ongoing strike could have serious repercussions.br /”If the negotiations do not reach a conclusion within the next seven days, the Air Force will be forced to send the current senior training class of pilots to another base that conducts training for pilots,” he said. “If the strike continues, more and more classes, and potentially their aircraft, will be moved out of Vance.”br /Inhofe said he and other legislators are concerned about the military’s reliance on contractors, and an increase in collective bargaining agreements that can stop operations on a base.br /”It is my fear that, in some cases, outsourcing to contractors has gone too far,” he said. “Inherently governmental tasks should be left to government workers.”br /So, why all the subcontracting? Because our active military is much, much, much too small. Things that soldier and sailors used to do are now done by contractors. Since soldiers can’t rotate from overseas back to one of these “on base” jobs, there’s little choice but to keep deploying the troops for almost back-to-back missions.br /We are at war. Our active military should be 2 to 3 times as big as it is; then we won’t need all these contractors (including the Blackwater types), because there will be service people doing them. Hey, it’ll even create jobs.
