Lawmakers redouble efforts to save Electric Boat jobs

April 16, 2006|Andrew Miga, Associated Press

WASHINGTON --Connecticut lawmakers cheered when the federal base closing commission saved Submarine Base New London from the Pentagon's hit list last summer.

Eight months later, no one is celebrating. The state's congressional delegation is scrambling to prevent more layoffs at the Electric Boat shipyard as the Navy scales back its sub programs.

The Groton shipyard is struggling with as many as 2,400 job cuts this year through layoffs and attrition, and has held out the prospect of future job reductions as well. The layoffs began after the Navy abruptly shifted much of its sub maintenance work from Groton to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.

Design work is also drying up. For the first time since the 1950s, there is no next-generation submarine on the drawing boards for engineers.

Three subs based in Groton, meanwhile, are expected to move to the West Coast over the next few years.

The Pentagon had originally planned to shutter the Navy's Groton base, but those plans were thwarted when Connecticut lobbied the base closing commission.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, warned that unless production is doubled, the current fleet of 53 subs would slip below 48 in six years.