Shipbuilder Warns of Layoffs if Biden Doesn’t Buy More Destroyers – By Marcus Weisgerber (Defense One) / July 9 2021
Bath Iron Works told Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks it will need to cut its workforce by 2,500 if more ships aren’t ordered soon.
BATH, MAINE—Bath Iron Works said it might cut 2,500 workers if the Biden administration does not place a multiyear order for more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers within the next two years.
That warning was given to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks when she met with General Dynamics executives during a visit to the shipyard on Wednesday. The company is urging the Pentagon to place an order for at least 15 ships beginning in 2023 so that Bath Iron Works can retain enough seasoned workers to build the DDG(X)—the Navy’s next class of destroyer.
“The punchline you’ll see is there’s no overlap between the current projected end of the [Arleigh Burke] program and the start of DDG(X),” said Jon Mason, the shipyard’s vice president for human resources. “And the challenges that that will create from an industrial base standpoint is what we really wanted to convey in these discussions here today.”
Executives fear a decline in orders will create a gap between the current class of destroyers and the new class of ships that is at least a decade away.
