BIW announces 19 electrician layoffs
Bath Iron Works told union members on Friday that it plans to lay off 19 electricians effective Oct. 28.
“Essentially this is the somewhat cyclical nature of the business we’re in,” Matt Wickenheiser, manager of communications and public relations at BIW, told The Times Record. “At some points we just don’t have the type of work for these trades, or enough of the type of work to keep all these trades employed, so we have to go through some layoffs like this. And our hope is certainly that we find other positions for them in the shipyards if possible.”
Wickenheiser added that the layoffs are unrelated to the Coast Guard bypassing BIW for a lucrative Offshore Patrol Cutter contract in September.
That $110.29 million contract was awarded to Eastern Shipbuilding Group Inc. of Panama City, Fla., to produce the lead Offshore Patrol Cutter, with the potential for up to eight follow-on cutters for a total value of $2.38 billion for nine cutters, according to a Coast Guard announcement.
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