Bad Boss, Bad Job: Why NOT To Work For General Dynamics / Bath Iron Works

  

Several of us camped out in front of a hiring event held by General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works at the Maine Bureau of Labor's Career Center yesterday. Based on Augusta Police and Capitol Police cruising by without stopping, we were on public property. Our goal: offering information to prospective job applicants about how GD/BIW profits from its support of Israel's Gaza genocide.

Current employees of GD/BIW wore t-shirts with the slogans depicted above -- reminding potential new hires of the shipyard's culture. 

BIW is a notoriously wretched place to work. Women hate it, young people hate it, and it's not difficult to see why. Still, as one young woman with the appearance of an education worker (she was carrying a tote bag with a famous children's book cover on it) told us, I need a job.

Our response: Of course, but there are so many other places you could work.

Top 5 reasons not to work at GD/BIW

#1 Genocide profiteers

One job seeker commented at our display, I did not know that General Dynamics owned Bath Iron Works.

#2 Terrible management

BIW stonewalls workers during contract negotiations and then hires outside the contract using loopholes to bring in workers from out of state.

BIW lives off taxpayers as it builds solely for the Navy, has lots of cash (in 2023 GD's CEO Phebe Novakovic was paid $22.5 million), and is indicating they are increasingly short of workers to fulfill the warship orders they've already received. 

They have an online job application for a multitude of openings. It would be shame if unserious applicants were to gum up the works.

 #3 Bad neighbors

From the Times Record August 13, 2024:

Bath Iron Works has withdrawn a pair of requests to rezone a section of Bath’s South End neighborhood after pushback from neighbors who want to know more about what the shipyard is planning.

BIW was looking to amend zoning for parts of the South End neighborhood because the company’s office building at 580 Washington St. is outdated and requires significant upgrades..

BIW has been acquiring real estate in the neighborhood along Washington Street as well as residential properties on Wesley, Bath and Middle streets since early 2023, according to city records.

#4 Health hazards

Any industrial job carries risks to workers' health. Former BIW tool shop worker the late Peter Woodruff developed aphasia (loss of the ability to speak) due to manganese exposure similar to the neurological problems experienced by others who worked with the substance. Woodruff was dropped by BIW's company doctor for raising the issue and lacked the deep pockets to take on GD's corporate lawyers pushing back on his claim.

#5 There are viable alternatives

The job market in Maine favors workers at the moment. That is, unemployment is low and myriad jobs working for the man (military, police, BIW) are experiencing persistent staffing shortfalls. The misnomer "best job in Maine" applied to BIW indicates that full-time jobs with benefits are rare and especially ones that offer a living wage. 

What are some alternatives?

The biggest employers in Maine are public education followed by health care providers like hospitals. Both need workers of all kinds, not just folks with college degrees. Many offer union membership to protect workers' rights and to engage in collective bargaining over contracts.

Paper mills still exist, like SAPPI in Waterville. Jobs there include ongoing education at your employer's expense.

Ships, Shoes & Submarines: #Maine Jobs and Our Dependence on Military Production

Midcoast Citizens for Sustainable Economies

Announces a VITAL CONNECTIONS Public Forum

“Ships, Shoes, and Submarines: Maine Jobs

and Our Dependence on Military Production”

Friday June 27^th, Winter Street Church in Bath – Free and Open to the Public

BATH – A newly formed citizens’ coalition based in Bath, Midcoast Citizens for Sustainable Economies (MCSE), presents a Vital Connections forum on June 27 for the exchange of information and ideas about the diversification of Maine’s military manufacturing sector.

Experts will review what other states are currently doing to move beyond their dependence on military spending and seed a discussion about the possibilities for Maine. In 2013, the state of Connecticut passed a law creating a statewide planning commission to help the state prepare for conversion from their heavy reliance on military contracts. Additional states are following suit, with Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio and Michigan, among others, working on similar legislation.

As we prepare to have statewide discussions about Maine’s future – and prepare for an important election in November – we invite our fellow Midcoast citizens to enter into a conversation about our spending, our economy and our communities. The expert panel on June 27 includes, so far:

·        Miriam Pemberton, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., who writes and speaks on demilitarization issues for the Institute’s Foreign Policy In Focus project.

·       Leslie Manning of Bath, an advocate for economic and social justice and the Quaker representative to the Maine Council of Churches.  A former union representative and organizer, Leslie served as deputy director of the Bureau of Labor Standards at Maine Department of Labor in a previous administration.

·       Sen. Margaret Craven of Androscoggin County and co-chair of the joint legislative committee on Health and Human Services.  Sen. Craven represents an area where there are many BIW employees and, as a former member of the Appropriations committee, understands the state budget process and our reliance on federal dollars for a variety of programs and services.

·       Moderator Rev. Bill Barter is the Executive Director of the Maine Council of Churches and Senior Pastor at St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church in Portland.  Rev. Barter was born in Bath, lives in Brunswick and has friends and relatives employed in defense industries.

Good paying jobs with decent benefits are essential to Maine's economy and communities, and many of our state’s current jobs are with defense contractors here in Maine.  Almost 10% of our state's GDP is dependent on military contracting, producing everything from destroyers to footwear and apparel, and providing services such as submarine repair and health care contracting. That reliance on continued spending ($3,303.53 per capita, the fourth highest in the country) makes Maine especially vulnerable to expected reductions in Pentagon spending.

Data shows that defense spending is not a reliable jobs creator. In a recent study compiled by the University of Massachusetts, $1 billion in Pentagon spending results in 11,200 jobs, while comparable investment in education results in 26,700 jobs being created.  Other sectors fared better, as well: clean energy results in 16,800 jobs, health care creates 17,200 jobs, and even returning that money to taxpayers could result in 15,100 new jobs. 

References: 

http://fcnl.org/pdfs/issues/budget/Jobs_vs_Military_Final.pdf  

http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/published_study/PERI_military_spending_2011.pdf    

We invite the public to take part in the potluck from 5:30 to 6:30 just before the event. The Winter Street Church is located at 880 Washington in Bath, across from the Patten Free Library. Admission is free, though donations will be gladly accepted to cover costs.

The new citizens’ group MCSE is pleased to produce their first official event under the auspices of Vital Connections, a public forum that meets quarterly in the Midcoast area. Vital Connections’ participants involved in local self-reliance projects around the Bath/Brunswick/Freeport region of Maine present their work and vision to the public and to one another.

Vital Connections forums foster knowledge and awareness of what it takes for our community, and the region as a whole, to reach relative self-sufficiency in basic areas. The forums urge action to follow from the sharing of knowledge and awareness. The basic areas include food, energy, health, education, the arts, local investment and funding, social justice, criminal justice, local government democracy, security and peace.

For more information on MCSE and the June 27^th forum, contact Carol Huntington at 443-5777, or find “Ships, Shoes and Submarines” on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/BathDiversificationForum                 

For info on Vital Connections, contact Rosalie Paul at gaia@gwi.net, or 207-406-2273; or John Rensenbrink at john@rensenbrink.com, 207-725-6955.

Sacred Cows & Pull The Pork: Whose Ox Is Being Gored?

Corporate communications specialists come up with messaging and test it using focus groups. Using fearmongering as their primary strategy, and huge sums of money as blunt instruments to deliver the fear, they favor slogans like "hollow the force" and "playing games with America's national security."

There is an important discussion occurring among peace workers around messaging during the federal budget follies known as sequestration. Much of it is in response to attempts to widen the tent under which radical peacemakers gather, inviting in disparate elements such as labor unions. Many of these unions have been carrying water for the Democratic Party and are apparently unable to criticize an elected Democrat even when he or she acts like a Republican. (Full disclosure: I count the union I pay dues to, the National Education Association, among them.)

Jobs Not Wars is one such attempt. Hoping to appeal to the dwindling middle class and its aspirants, the campaign is hamstrung by the inconvenient truth that jobs equal weapons manufacturing in every congressional district in the land. "Pull the Pork" is a slogan that has been in use these past weeks; "pork" of course refers to congressional spending in one's district as a way of delivering what the voters supposedly sent you to Washington for.

But Jobs Nots Wars is a slogan likely to resonate negatively with the largely youthful uprising of Occupy Wall St. and everywhere. Typically those activists do not want a job under capitalism, they want to replace capitalism because

Most Occupiers believe that "another world is possible." They are typically not interested in compromise with the rotten old system. Cutting the Pentagon budget by 10% over ten years would be, to most in OWS, an insipid ask.

Appealing to concerns over the unraveling of the middle class dream is another big tent strategy. Examining this it struck me that the middle class dream was a belief for old people. Following the trends of a younger demographic seems more likely to build a movement. Still, old dreams die hard...and the peace movement is, demographically, quite old at this point.

The women-led peace and justice group CODEPINK is willing to expend some energy to hold elected officials accountable because 1) we still can (the use 'em or lose 'em approach to our rights under the Constitution) and 2) most people are scared to. Speaking for myself, I don't expect it to change much of anything. But such activity can be a good platform for communicating to the general public especially via the mainstream media which will cover something if it happens in a Senate hearing, but not if it happens outside on the pavement. CP is all about finding multiple ways to communicate, to break through wall of silence enforced by secretive government and complicit corporate media.

Because a detailed account of how corporations like General Dynamics maintain a stranglehold on government by means of what Nicholas J.S. Davies calls  “'legalized bribery' within a superficially democratic system" is simply too unpalatable for most U.S. citizens to bear.

That's why humor is a CODEPINK tactic. It reaches people who are not going to take the time or risk bumming their high by reading Medea Benjamin's well-researched book on drones. 

To whip up support for demanding the White House release their secret legal memos used to justify drone strikes by the CIA, CODEPINK teamed up with the very popular comedian Jon Stewart of The Daily Show to send out a serious message surrounded by silliness:

I like the president, but if he's going to claim the right to kill me with a flying robot, don't I at least deserve to know why?

Clicking on one link leads to serious information about the secret memos. Clicking on another generates a letter calling on Patrick Leahy "the big, bald-headed Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee – to get his hands on those drone memos. If he does, he'll be doing a public service."

I'm sure many in the peace movement will be offended by the silliness, the phrase "I like the president," or even the pink. I've been told my big pink wig "trivializes our message." I disagree, because it very often becomes the medium for getting out the message on network t.v. or the front page of the newspaper. That's my public service.

Besides, young friends sheepishly tell me The Daily Show and/or The Colbert Report is where they get most of their news. Sugar coating makes bitter pills easier to swallow, and tailoring the message to the audience is just good communication.

You would think that citizens would recognize their ox being gored and care about the threats to their freedom of 57% spending on military while banks are bailed out and the liberal class claims that cuts to Social Security and Medicare are necessary. And citizens might know some of this, and they might care.

But they also might be quite busy working at their three McJobs.

#Austerity is a sham. Tell Congress Dec 5: Jobs Not War!

Reposting below from the Jobs Not War campaign just as news came that the U.S. Senate authorized over $600 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2013.

Austerity is a sham. Let's make a big noise about it.

Call Congress December 5th to say NO to cuts for Medicare, Medicaid and vital services

Call your Members of Congress on Dec. 5th and tell them…We voted for JOBS, not CUTS – WORK not WAR

1-866-426-2631 or 1-800-998-0180

On December 5th, thousands of Americans will pick up the phone to call their Members of Congress and tell them not to sell out working class families by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and vital services, destroying millions of jobs and hurting children, seniors and people with disabilities.

Tell them that the best way to reduce the deficit is to create jobs, end tax breaks for the rich, demand that they publicly agree to protect Medicaid, Medicare and vital services, and move funds from the runaway Pentagon budget to meet peoples’ needs.

Call 866-426-2631 to get more background information on the threat to Medicare and Medicaid and 800-998-0180 about Social Security, and either to be connected to the offices of your Members of Congress.

Call 1-866-426-2631 or 1-800-998-0180 on Dec. 5th to say NO to cuts for Medicare, Medicaid and vital services. 

Then sign the JOBS-NOT-WARS PETITION at www.jobs-not-wars.org

Who's Representing You In Washington?

CODEPINK  in action today 9/13/11!

Medea Benjamin and others hold signs of our times as General Petraeus testifies to Congress in a joint intelligence hearing.

As a major assault on the U.S. embassy, the Afghan national security ministry, and NATO headquarters among other places had Kabul in chaos, here is what your government was doing: listening to the Pentagon.
 

Alli & Jim crashing the Super Committee meeting today.

That is, when they weren't listening to the boy billionaires club, the so-called Super Committee that was formed to raid the big enchilada of pension funds, Social Security. And order up austerity for you. Bring our war $$ home!

War Criminal enabler, lawyer John Yoo was seeing PINK today too!

The Heritage Foundation appearance by the man who wrote the torture memos during the Bush administration attracted Gael and other activists with messages: SHAME ON YOO.

All three of these men represent what is dangerously wrong with our country and the globe it tries to dominate. Endless war on "terror" as if such a thing were even possible. Pretend crisis in order to raid a fat pension fund to keep buying massive amounts of weapons. Pseudo-intellectuals who pervert their education to construct rationalizations for the darkest kind of human behavior. For-profit.

Grateful to my PINK sisters & brothers for being there.

Information at Work

Yesterday Islamophobia reared its ugly head in the form of a crazed killer who fed on hate language and then began bombing and shooting people in the name of cultural purity. Paul Woodward blogging on War in Context does a good job of tracing the ideological currents feeding the particular sociopathic acts of Anders Behring Breivik yesterday in Norway.

Note that the poster for a cross-Atlantic meeting of Islamophobes features graphic images reminiscent of pro-war posters of the 20th century, and that the flag of Israel is prominent in the toxic stew of nationalism depicted. The image reminds me of all kinds of antiquated, idealistic notions -- like the melting pot, and a U.S. fueled by the strength of its successive waves of immigration. Also why propaganda needs the talents of artists.

Hot on the heels of that news came an email link to a thrashingly good op-ed in Truthout by Barbara Ellis calling for Works Progess Administration II. I am embarrassed to admit that this is exactly what I expected Obama to do in his first week in office. I even expected him to sweep aside the writers who pen crap like "winning the future" and go with a proven successful brand name, WPA. There was already tons of awareness to build on. (A friend I grew up with told me she asked her mother what the mom's brother would have done if he had not gone into the WPA work force during the Great Depression. "Starved," said her mom.) And WPA artists were the best!

Ellis did her homework and includes lots of fun facts about WPA as it was, and she details the infrastructure needs here at home right now that could be addressed. She also notes that a likely reason for the tepid drawdown from Afghanistan is fear of bringing home tens of thousands more to join the ranks of the 15 million already unemployed in the U.S. today.

The problems of employing some of those PTSD suffering returnees is the subject of a young adult novel that a fellow teacher and I finished this summer, now available on Amazon as a Kindle book (you can also download reading software, and read the first few chapters, for free).

But the Obama administration may think they have the jobs problem i.e. the economic Great Depression II problem solved. Check out their exhaustive list of great job opportunities OVERSEAS! Blogger Martha Shelley wrote about all the many employment opportunities "servicing" the military via cake decoration, clerking at a hotel desk or store, and much more. Thanks to Martha for sharing this link to the full list of jobs online.

No need for a new poster. The old WPA produced the perfect one already:

PINKs to Panetta: Bring our war $$ home!

War protesters demonstrate as CIA Director Leon Panetta arrives for testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. " LA Times (Win McNamee, Getty Images / June 9, 2011)

When the CEO of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan becomes the director of the CIA, and the CIA director is named Secretary of Defense, it's hard not to see these as signs of the end times. End times for anyone's naive faith that our government represents the people, that is.

We're bombing five countries that I know about, destroying a coral reef in South Korea to make more places to keep our nuclear destroyers, and my senator, Susan Collins, is sucking up to Panetta to get more, more and more war dollar contracts at Bath Iron Works in Maine.

“I strongly believe the Navy has to project our force throughout the world and that the Navy is obviously crucial to that mission,” Panetta replied to Collins, according to her statement to the Times Record in Bath.

Then I realize it's the end times all over the place, with youth rising up. The Arab spring ripens into summer, with death and torture unleashed -- whatever it takes to keep the power structure in place. In Spain, the UK, the U.S. and Canada they're rising up against no jobs, cuts to education, huge student loan burdens, no health insurance -- and no light at the end of the economic outlook tunnel.

That's why we need to bring our war dollars home, now more than ever.

Senators, are you listening? Are you reading those bright pink signs that Tighe, Allie and Medea are holding right in front of your faces? Almost half of your constituents think the country is headed even deeper into economic distress, maybe even depression. A whopping 30% told CNN they fear they will be unemployed soon. And building nuclear war ships is the only lousy jobs program my senator can come up with?

Senate Page Brigette DePape silently standing in the Canadian Senate chamber with a "Stop Harper" sign to protest budget cuts gutting higher education and other social services. Which she will now need more than ever,  because her courageous act of nonviolent resistance got her fired. Go Brigette, our shero!

POSTSCRIPT: For a good discussion of the policies of economic exploitation affecting us globally, see Mark Levine's op-ed on Al Jazeera, "Arab revolutions mask economic status quo."