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Special Web Report

 

Save Avondale Shipyard Campaign Builds Hope in New Orleans

 

October 25, 2011

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After Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill wreaked havoc on New Orleans, a global audience marveled again at the stoicism and solemn resolve of bayou folk who have faced down the pain and trauma that has washed over the Gulf Coast for generations.


The threatened shutdown of Avondale Shipyard, which employs 650 members of nearby Pascagoula, Miss., Local 733 hasn’t drawn the international attention of other disasters. The closing of  major manufacturing facilities, in this case, Louisiana’s largest employer, with 5,000 workers, is taken as commonplace and expected.

 

Save Our Shipyard Campaign ( View IBEW Video)

But, a Save Our Shipyard campaign, highlighted by a march in early October of more than 2,000 union members, clergy, community groups and political leaders, is building hope that another tragedy can be avoided. Every step on the march from the Superdome to New Orleans’ Hale Boggs Federal Building reminded participants and observers alike that a closure of the yard—which supports another 6,500 indirect jobs and hundreds of businesses in their state—could have an even more devastating and lasting effect than the hurricane and spill. The area’s TV, newspaper and radio outlets widely covered the march and the details of Avondale’s predicament.

No longer a sacred cow, the U.S. military budget is being eyed by budget cutters and naval vessel construction, Avondale’s specialty, is tapering down. The yard, acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2001, will close in 2013 unless new customers or partners come forward to save all or part of Louisiana’s largest work place. Huntington Ingalls also owns a mammoth yard in Pascagoula employing more than 1,300 IBEW members. The Pascagoula yard has several large ships in the pipeline.

 

Government Incentives

 Avondale workers are already reaping some benefits from their activism.

 On October 18, Huntington Ingalls CEO Mike Petters and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement that will provide up to $214 million of incentives for the company to develop a joint venture to keep Avondale open for business. State funding will be available for retooling, worker training and modernization of the yard. The incentives are contingent on the company retaining at least 3,850 full-time jobs at the facility.

Says IBEW Government Director Chico McGill, a former business manager of Local 733:

IBEW members should be proud of our brothers and sisters at Avondale and Pascagoula who are standing up for their own jobs and for the future of their communities. Their work ethic and steadfast efforts have helped Huntington Ingalls, Gov. Jindal, Sen. Mary Landreu (D-La.), U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and others in powerful positions focused on keeping options open for Avondale, our members and the regional economy.

While the new memorandum raises hopes, says McGill, the fight for Avondale’s future is far from over.  Petters told the Daily Press in September that the company’s “plan of record” is still to close the yard.

 

New Enterprise Could Offer Revival

Avondale workers hope that  American Feeder Lines, a new enterprise that is currently using foreign-produced ships to conduct short hauls of containers between a few cities along the East Coast into Canada, will tap the yard’s workers to build ships and containers to extend their services along the Gulf Coast.  Percy Payne, CEO of American Feeder Lines, joined workers in the October march.

Inside the yard, the layoffs have begun as military ships under construction are completed. The mood among hourly and managerial workers is a mix of denial and despair, says Darrell Smith, Local 733’s chief shop steward.  Some union members believe the yard’s future is guaranteed.  Others believe the end is near and, says Smith, and “they want this to hurry up and be over.”

Smith, who has worked as an electronics technician for 24 years, says:

I can’t be a ‘don’t give a damn’ kind of person.  I think we still have a chance. I don’t want [the negative stuff] to be part of my spirit. This is like a football game.  As long as there is time on the clock, we have a chance.

 

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A History of Fighting for Justice

Smith’s positive attitude and activism were solidified during  the six-year struggle by the New Orleans Metal Trades to organize Avondale.  Workers first voted for representation in 1993. But, through delaying tactics and the firings of union supporters, Avondale bucked the union until 1999. The Metal Trades’ victory was celebrated as a pivotal one for Southern labor. This recent history adds emotion and pathos to the campaign to save Avondale.

“The yard was like a slave camp when I started,” says Smith. There was no union.  Workers were losing their lives due to unsafe conditions.  Relations between managers and workers were predominantly hostile.  The campaign changed everything. Smith says:

We made the yard much safer.  We brought wages up to livable standards. Today, I do interviews for job applicants and people are coming from all over the world to work here.  The union and the company have put workers back in school for training.  Now some of the managers [who opposed the union] have learned that when we make more money, they do, too.  Upper managers are even encouraging their children to find jobs in the bargaining unit.

The organizing campaign brought dramatic gains to the surrounding communities.  Young people, says Smith, who once would have come into the yard to work dead-end jobs now enter apprenticeship programs and some continue on to college with employer-paid tuition. Says Smith:

Workers at the yard now own homes, cars and aren’t ‘nickle and dimed’ on the job.  We have more respect in the community.  Members have even come out of jail, gotten jobs in the yard and gained respect. Now you have a new generation learning about unions.

 

Devastating Results of Shutdown Documented

Tax dollars from Avondale funded the rebuilding of bridges and new roads and local businesses thrived.  “This was a future for generations to come,” says Smith.

Merland Farria, president of the New Orleans Metal Trades and a member of Local 733, in a letter to the editor of www.nola.com wrote:

I represent the men and women who are losing their jobs. Their families will suffer. So will the stores where they used to spend their paychecks and the churches where they put money in the plate. City and parish budgets will be hit. When paychecks stop, tax dollars disappear, too.

 Avondale and Ingalls are the largest employers in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi—generating some $12.6 billion a year, an economic impact on the Gulf Coast three times greater than of economic than the $4 billion that seafood and tourism industries generate combined. To underscore the yard’s importance, The Metal Trades leased “Save our Shipyard” billboards across the New Orleans area shortly after layoffs began at the yards.

In September, a study conducted by the University of New Orleans quantified some of unionists’ fears regarding a shutdown at Avondale. The study predicted that real estate values in communities close to the yard would plunge by more than 20 percent if it closes.

In a blog posting, Ron Ault, president of the Metal Trades, AFL-CIO, says:

Avondale has historically had a majority black workforce.  What effect will shutting down the largest employer in the state have on the poverty level in the black and Hispanic communities in the region?

 

Ties Built with Clergy

The Avondale SOS campaign has tapped a broad vein of support in New Orleans using organizing methods honed during the Civil Rights Movement. During the weekend of September 11-12, working with  Interfaith Worker Justice , activists reached out to local clergy to join in prayers for an alternative to the pending shutdown. Also participating in the prayer sessions were students participating in AFL-CIO’s Union Summer program.

The city’s Catholic, Episcopal and Baptist leaders encouraged nearly 200 congregations to participate in prayers for Avondale. Jim VanderWeele, minister of New Orleans’ Community Church Unitarian Universalist told www.nola.com:

I can see why many would be very skeptical of this [praying to stop a man-made, market-oriented problem].  But…one of the values of prayer is that it draws people together.

Nick Unger, an AFL-CIO coordinator, told www.nola.com :

We did not ask churches to sign on and call (U.S. Sen. David)  Vitter. We said lift this up in your own way, And that will help create a political and social atmosphere where it’s easier to come up with a solution.  If the public says they really want this, the Avondale problem will be solved, in some way.

Smith is keeping his own hopes up and trying to spread a positive spirit in the yard. He says:

This yard does not have to close down. We’re finally getting the word out and getting back to the forefront—marching in the street and seeing a lot of coverage on radio and TV and [kicking up] a lot more conversation about Avondale.

 

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