Shipyard job security shrinks with sub fleet

KITTERY – For electrician John Royce, the decision wasn’t difficult – if federal commissioners had voted Wednesday to close Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, he would have stayed at his job.

“I could have drawn retirement as well as work,” said Royce, 58, who has logged more than 30 years at the yard.

“The younger guys, it would have been harder for them to take this, and I’m glad to see they have work,” he said.

For years, young men and women who signed on as shipyard apprentices believed they were in a for a lifetime of job security, good wages and benefits.

Though the shipyard was saved in this round, there is no certainty that it will not end up on another closure list as the Navy’s submarine fleet dwindles – and so does the promise of lifelong employment for its younger workers.

“What’s going to be difficult is to get the message out that just like jobs in the private sector … young people cannot expect to get jobs at the shipyard and have those jobs forever,” said Ross Gittell, a University of New Hampshire economist who has studied the shipyard’s economic impact on the region.

Gittell said the region should develop expertise in growing fields such as information technology, especially in the health care field, where providers are looking for applications that will help reduce health care costs.

The Department of Defense had hoped to save $48.8 billion over 20 years by closing, downsizing or expanding domestic military installations. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard employs 4,500 people, mostly in Maine and New Hampshire, paying out more than $300 million in wages. It is one of four public shipyards in the country capable of refueling nuclear submarines.

Maine and New Hampshire’s congressional delegations said the Pentagon underestimated the cost of closing Portsmouth and ignored data proving the shipyard saves money by routinely completing work under cost and ahead of time. On Wednesday, commissioners agreed with the delegations, voting 7-1 to take the shipyard from the base closure list.

But the Navy builds fewer than one submarine a year, and projects that its fleet will fall from 54 to the 30s in the coming years.

That could change, depending on future terrorism threats, said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who said China is building subs “at an incredible rate.”

“The question of the size of the fleet … is very much in play. But there will be a robust submarine fleet in the water for the foreseeable future because they’re the ultimate stealthy weapon.”

As for future closure rounds, “I don’t see us going through any more in the near future or even the foreseeable future,” Gregg said, because of how long it will take the Pentagon to work through this latest set of closures.

The key to keeping the shipyard from being targeted is for the workers to continue doing “extraordinary” work, he said.

Meanwhile, the delegations will focus on making sure the Navy sends submarine work to Portsmouth, not private yards, said Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H.

“We will continue to watch this like a hawk,” he said.