Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire have asked the U.S. Navy to seek an exemption for Portsmouth Naval Shipyard workers from the Trump administration’s drive to reduce the federal workforce by encouraging resignations.
Collins, a Republican, and Shaheen, a Democrat, cited increasing military threats as a key reason to leave the shipyard workforce intact.
In a letter Tuesday to Terence G. Emmert, the acting Navy secretary, the lawmakers said public shipyard workers are “critical members of our defense industrial base, without whom the ability to repair, retrofit and refuel our country’s submarines would be in jeopardy.”
Collins and Shaheen cited looming military threats from China, which they said is “rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons programs,” as a basis to protect the importance of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet.
U.S. shipyards “cannot afford to reduce their workforces,” Collins and Shaheen said. The Portsmouth shipyard instead needs to hire 550 workers a year to meet Navy demand, they said.
The lawmakers asked the Department of the Navy to engage with the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources agency, to provide an exception for employees at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and other parts of the defense industrial base from recently announced “workforce-shaping policies.”
Collins and Shaheen said the shipyard in Kittery has nearly 8,000 civilian employees, adding to more than $1.5 billion in annual economic impact in surrounding communities.
It’s unclear how many shipyard workers accepted the offer to quit. The Navy did not immediately respond to questions from a reporter. The deadline to take a buyout was Wednesday.
Contacted by email Thursday night, Collins’ office could not say whether the exemption would rescind offers to workers who agreed to take the buyout before the deadline passed.
“Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is working with the Office of Personnel Management and the assistant secretary of the Navy to execute all executive orders,” said Gary Hildreth, a spokesman for the shipyard.
The Metal Trades Council, which represents workers at the shipyard, did not reply Thursday to an email asking about its response to the workforce reduction plan. Area news outlets reported that the president of the union representing 3,000 employees advised members to not take the federal government offer, citing conflicting information in emails and letters.
Unions at the federal level that represent more than 800,000 workers sued to stop the program, which was halted since last Thursday. A judge on Wednesday lifted the pause on the so-called deferred resignation program. On Wednesday night, the Trump administration closed the offer to workers who might still have considered it.
About 75,000 federal workers accepted the buyout, about 3.25% of a civilian workforce of 2.3 million. The program, which encouraged federal workers to resign with the promise of pay through September, is one of several approaches Trump is using to cut the federal labor force.
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