BIW may lose jobs under Bush budget plan

BATH – President Bush’s budget proposal released Monday calls for cutting spending on stealthy destroyers to be built at Bath Iron Works, raising the specter of future job cuts unless some of the funding can be restored.

The budget mirrors a Navy recommendation leaked last month calling for construction of three fewer DD(X) destroyers compared to the president’s budget a year ago. Delivery of the first ships would be pushed back as well.

The proposal comes at a time when the Bath shipyard already faces expected work force reductions as the current destroyer program winds down.

Mike Keenan, president of Machinists Union Local S6, said the end of the current Arleigh Burke-class program and delays and cuts in DD(X) raise the possibility of bigger job cuts down the road. The Navy shipbuilder now employs about 6,200 people.

But Keenan expressed optimism that shipbuilders will do what it takes to keep the shipyard viable. “In a competitive world, can we survive? Absolutely,” he said.

The president’s proposal for the budget that starts Oct. 1 calls for an overall increase of 4.8 percent in defense spending. But many expensive, high-tech programs will be cut because of the mounting costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Billions of dollars would be slashed from planned spending on the Air Force’s high-priority fighter jet program, the F/A-22, as well as Navy shipbuilding.

The F/A-22 program would be halted in 2008 after 179 planes are built – 96 short of the Air Force’s goal, and the Navy will get fewer destroyers and submarines. The proposal calls for one of the Navy’s 12 aircraft carriers to be mothballed ahead of schedule.

The budget calls for funding only one DD(X) destroyer each year from 2007 to 2011, for a total of five ships, said BIW spokesman Dirk Lesko.

The Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi would build the first DD(X), meaning fabrication on the first one at Bath might not begin until early 2009, he said. That happens at the same time shipbuilders will be wrapping up their last Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, said Bath Iron Works would see gradual job reductions under the budget proposal.

“Bath Iron Works today has a backlog of 10 [Arleigh Burke] destroyers in various stages of construction. The yard is viable, but there is likely to be a gradual decline in the work force that continues throughout the next four years,” he said.

Internal Navy estimates indicate that the two New England shipbuilders, Bath Iron Works and submarine builder Electric Boat in Connecticut, could lose a third of their combined work force by 2008, Thompson said.

Bath Iron Works has declined to say how many jobs could be cut. But Lesko said he sees a relatively stable work force in Bath until 2009, when the workload gap between the new and old destroyer programs arises.

Maine’s congressional delegation has vowed to fight for additional funding for Bath Iron Works. “Building just five destroyers over the next five years … is inadequate and shortsighted,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe.

Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, met with union leaders Monday morning in Bath before returning to Washington, D.C.

“People have to be worried about their jobs, particularly if they don’t have a lot of seniority because the administration is determined to reduce funding for shipbuilding,” Allen said Monday afternoon from Washington.

The problem is not that the Navy wants to cut shipbuilding; the problem is simply that the Navy doesn’t have the money, he said.

“This is not about a reduced need for ships. It’s about two things primarily: The president’s tax cuts have driven us deep into deficit and that has been exacerbated by the spending in Iraq,” Allen said.

Keenan, speaking from his office across the street from the shipyard, said the company and the union have worked hard to make the shipyard more competitive by reducing the amount of time it takes to build each destroyer.

The ranks of his union also have thinned, from 4,500 to 4,150, as part of those efficiency efforts during the last year.

Keenan said the shipyard’s workers are eager to compete. But it’s discouraging when there’s so little work available.

“If there’s no work to compete for, then there’s not a lot of light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.