Metal Trades Workers March
To Save Rights, Shipyard
December 2004 IBEW
Journal
Police estimated 1,000 people
joined an interstate rally in support of the Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard last October.
Participants gathered in Maine and crossed
a river into New Hampshire to highlight the importance
of the border shipyard where 4,600 people are employed,
many of them union members represented by the Portsmouth
Metal Trades Council. Dual concerns plague the workers:
fears the yard may be targeted for shutdown in the next
round of base closures and proposed Department of Defense
rules seeking to remove bargaining rights from federal
employees.
"We really dont know what the Navy
and the Department of Defense have on their mind but they
are thinking about contracting out and selling shipyards
to private contractors," said IBEW Government Department
Director Gil Bateman. "We are really worried about
the possibility."
Portsmouth Metal Trades Council President
Paul OConnor said the yard that maintains and repairs
nuclear submarines is the pride of the Navy, consistently
performing their work below cost and on schedule. "The
Navy has claimed that we are the best and for that they
want to strip us of our rights," said OConnor, a
member of Portsmouth Local 2071. "Thats a fact. Theyve
put that to paper."
Earlier this year, the Defense Department
proposed the National Security Personnel System, which
would effectively remove collective bargaining rights for
federal unions in the name of national security. The rally
was one of several throughout the year calling attention
to the rules, which had been scheduled to take effect in
October, OConnor said. Instead, the department pulled
them back, removing them as a campaign issue. OConnor
said he expects them to be revived shortly.
"It means as soon as the changes
go into effect, our contract will be null and void," he
said. "We will be subject to whatever whim of an idea
management chooses to implement. We lose our agreements
on overtime and workplace assignments."
The prospects of base closure and the
specter of NSPS implementation are equally disturbing,
OConnor said. "Its important we have a job to show
up at, but just as important is having workplace rights
giving us dignity and respect. To me, one without the other
is a defeat."
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