"Labor Day 2005: Concern and Celebration" (Message to Maine)

"Labor Day 2005: Concern and Celebration" (Message to Maine)

September 7, 2005

Message to Maine

"Labor Day 2005: Concern and Celebration"

By
U.S. Rep. Tom Allen
1st District of Maine

As Maine watched the horrible events in the Gulf Coast unfold on Labor Day this year, our celebration of that holiday was muted. While our attention was focused on the disaster wrought by nature and man, less than two weeks earlier, we had learned of decisions that will also have lasting impact on our State, particularly its workers. As a result of decisions by the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission concerning Maine military facilities, we found reasons both to count our blessings and to move forward in those areas where our concerns were rejected.

On the plus side, the BRAC Commission recommended the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) be kept open, ensuring that more than 4,500 mostly civilian workers in Kittery would keep on repairing, refueling and overhauling America's nuclear-powered attack submarines for years to come. The Commission agreed that the shipyard is, as Chairman Anthony Principi said, "the preeminent public shipyard, the gold standard by which we should measure shipyards." They concluded that our national security would be endangered by its shutdown. In the same spirit, the Commission recognized that the people at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) Center in Limestone had "proved their mettle" and were doing a "superb job," so good that the Center would not be closed. Rather, it would be expanded from about 350 positions to not less than 600.

On the other hand, BRAC Commissioners voted to close Brunswick Naval Air Station (BNAS), a move that leaves a gaping hole in the homeland defense of the Northeast, eliminates 2,700 military and 658 civilian jobs, and deals a heavy blow to the economy of the Midcoast region.

These decisions added poignancy and meaning to Maine's observance of Labor Day 2005. While the paramount concern of those of us who fought to keep Maine's military facilities open was national security, we also were mindful that the civilian jobs at stake are among the best in the State. PNSY's civilian payroll totals about $318 million a year; workers earn considerably more than the average Maine wage, and receive excellent health insurance and other benefits. The work performed by shipyard employees, moreover, is highly skilled and rewarding. These workers love what they are doing, and their passion and commitment surely helped sway the Commission. If Portsmouth had been ordered closed, many of these workers would have been hard pressed to find other employment that made use of their valuable but highly specialized expertise, unless they were willing to move hundreds or thousands of miles away from friends and family to one of the few other facilities that performs work on nuclear submarines. Likewise, the accounting and finance jobs at Limestone are among the best paying jobs in that region. Adding 250 good jobs to that hard-pressed area, still recovering from the closure of Loring AFB, which is the site of the DFAS Center, will be a significant boost to the region.

Good jobs not only keep workers and their families secure, but fuel the local economy through consumer spending. It has been estimated, for example, that if PNSY were closed, a total of about 17,000 jobs in Maine and New Hampshire would have been lost. In Brunswick and nearby Topsham, the loss of the military and civilian payroll will hurt. The saving grace of the Commission's decision to close rather than realign (that is, mothball) the base is that the property can now be re-developed. Governor Baldacci has already announced a comprehensive plan for spurring this re-development and helping displaced civilian workers train for new jobs. In the long run, I am confident that BNAS will follow the example of Pease AFB and other decommissioned bases to become a thriving economic center for the area. The base sits on prime, accessible, waterfront land, in an area that can attract businesses, skilled workers, and other elements needed to generate more jobs than were lost.

Another Labor Day lesson from the BRAC experience is this: Sometimes, but not always, worker involvement and excellence save the day. Commissioners were so impressed with Limestone's work ethic that they voted to expand its work force. Portsmouth operates like a well-oiled machine because, as Chairman Principi acknowledged, the shipyard is a "model for labor-management relations." Paul O'Connor, head of the shipyard's Metal Trades Council, told the Commission that after a decade of building "relationships of trust and respect between labor and management," a "cultural metamorphosis" has arisen. "[T]oday labor is woven into the shipyard fabric….Through dialog, our work force is totally understanding of what we're trying to achieve, and they understand exactly how we will achieve it." As a result, "our work force is the guiding force for the majority of our process improvements at the shipyard." The Commission understood that this unique culture, which benefits both workers and the nation, had taken years to establish, and could not be replicated easily at other shipyards.

The closure of BNAS, however, demonstrates that excellence is not always enough. Even enterprises that operate with unchallenged quality and output-as BNAS consistently has done-are constantly at risk of closure in this highly competitive world. When the business or facility is a regional economic engine, the impact can be particularly debilitating. But the skill and dedication that made BNAS workers so valuable can and will be put to use to restore what we have lost.

Labor Day was born more than a century ago. A great labor leader of that era, Samuel Gompers, said the national day off was intended as a time when "the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it." That tradition continues. Portsmouth workers spontaneously celebrated the BRAC decision by marching as a phalanx through the shipyard gates in their yellow "Save Our Shipyard" T-shirts now marked with a victorious "d" added to the first word. For them, as well as the Limestone workers, it is a time justifiably to feel strong. And for all Maine, it is a time to unite behind our brothers and sisters in Brunswick and Topsham to help them move on and ultimately to emerge as an even stronger community.

http://tomallen.house.gov/showart.asp?contentID=1702&IssueID=1&ID=