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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."