Press Releases

Secretary Ray Mabus tells Congresswoman Chellie Pingree 'no one will be laid off' due to lack of funding

Chellie with Sec. Mabus at BIW in 2009.

Chellie with Sec. Mabus at BIW in 2009.

During a conversation with Congresswoman Chellie Pingree this morning, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus pledged to make sure the Navy provides sufficient funding to avoid impending layoffs at Bath Iron Works and said interim funding for pending Navy contracts would be advanced to keep workers at BIW on the job.

"I told Secretary Mabus that we don't want to lose industrial capacity—we don't want to see workers laid off at Bath Iron Works," Pingree said. "He completely agrees and said the Navy would provide advance funding to avoid layoffs at least through April while the final details of the DDG-1000 contracts are hammered out."

Some workers would have been laid off within two weeks without additional advance funding on contracts that the Navy is currently negotiating with BIW. The company is currently building the first ship in the DDG-1000 line, and has been negotiating with the Navy on contracts for the next two. The additional funding is an advance on the work for those next two ships.

"The Secretary was very clear about layoffs," Pingree said. "He assured me that no one was going to get laid off at BIW in the short term because of a lack of funding from the Navy."

Pingree wrote to Mabus last week, urging him to release additional funding and to speed up the process of signing contracts for the two new ships in the DDG-1000 line to be built at BIW.