More than 500 security officers at the Pantex Plant outside Amarillo, Texas walked off the job on 15 April 2007, launching a six-week labor dispute with the government contractor managing the facility. Pantex is the United States' sole site for assembling and dismantling nuclear warheads. The central grievance was retirement: physical fitness requirements have made it nearly impossible for guards to stay on as they age, with only seven reaching retirement in the past two decades.
Roughly 200 replacement personnel were transferred in from other nuclear facilities nationwide, but critics argued they came with only a week of site-specific training, leaving them ill-prepared to secure one of the country's most sensitive installations. Unarmed federal employees were also reassigned to accompany nuclear transport shipments.
The Department of Energy's chief security official, Glenn Podonsky, told the Senate Armed Services Committee he found the site adequately defended but said he was worried about the system-wide cost if the walkout continued. A senior National Nuclear Security Administration official stated he remained confident in the plant's security.
The Project on Government Oversight called on the Energy Secretary to halt all weapons assembly and disassembly work at Pantex until the dispute was resolved, warning that the facility's stocks of warheads, high explosives, and plutonium made it a prime target.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in May 2007, in its own words.