The United Steelworkers union has fired the latest salvo in its growing war of words with the Department of Energy over labor issues at the Portsmouth D&D project. Earlier this month, USW International President Leo Gerard sent a letter to Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman reiterating the union’s stance on the need for improved benefits for Portsmouth D&D workers. The union has “strong objections to DOE’s current course of action at [Portsmouth], which not only is unacceptable at that site but also does not bode well for the future of workers at other DOE sites, or for the relationship of this union with the agency and the administration. I urge DOE in the strongest possible terms to change course and make the workers whole with respect to their benefits,” Gerard wrote in his June 15 letter.
Gerard’s letter was a response to one Poneman sent the USW last month, calling on the union to be more flexible in seeking to resolve the long-standing dispute over benefits at Portsmouth. The dispute involves questions over whether some D&D project workers who transferred to FBP from USEC, which previously performed “cold shutdown” work at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, are being improperly kept out of the benefit plan previously established for Portsmouth’s cleanup contractors. Local union officials have said the previously established plan provides better benefits than the one FBP has created for new employees. DOE has taken the position, though, that the FBP contract is a new contract at Portsmouth and not a follow-on to USEC’s previous contract, and as a result, the Department could not direct USEC to transfer pension and benefit plan assets and sponsorship to FBP.
In his latest letter, Gerard strongly criticized DOE’s position on the new D&D contract, saying “it is our view that DOE manipulated the process and incorrectly claimed the new contracts were not continuations of the work that had been done previously at the site. The agency therefore took the position it had no obligation, or only a very limited obligation, to ensure that workers’ wages, benefits and working conditions survived the transition intact.” Gerard also took issue with language Poneman used in his letter to suggest that “budget pressures” could lead to layoffs at Portsmouth. “This sounds as if it is intended as a direct threat to the USW members at [Portsmouth] that, if they do not go along with the severe budget cuts envisioned by DOE, they risk losing their jobs,” Gerard wrote, adding, “It is our hope you did not mean it this way. You can be assured that if such a course of action is implemented, it will be considered a declaration of war by DOE against our membership.”
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