United Steelworkers (USW) representatives at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth and Paducah Sites say they are troubled by lack of information coming from DOE and its contractors during the government shutdown.
In an online conversation Wednesday, union representatives told Exchange Monitor they are reaching out to elected officials from Kentucky and Ohio about confusion and economic fears facing workers at the former gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah, Ky., and Piketon, Ohio.
During a half-hour interview, the Monitor heard shutdown concerns from Gary Wilson who is president of USW Local 550 (Paducah) and president of the Atomic Energy Workers Council; Andria Tipton, president of Local 689; and Herman Potter. Potter is retired president of the Portsmouth USW union, and is also a member of the DOE’s Site-Specific Advisory Board for Portsmouth.
Workers at DOE sites across the country “really haven’t been told anything, not even rumors,” in many cases, Wilson said. The chatter at Portsmouth and Paducah is DOE and its contractors could face furloughs anytime from Oct. 31 through mid-November, the union representatives said Wednesday.
“There have been no specific dates here at Portsmouth,” Tipton said. Seems some contractors are waiting for direction from DOE, she added.
This is a concern because operations such as the depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion (DUF6) plants at Portsmouth and Paducah can take a week to safely shut down, Tipton said.
The minimum staffing levels that DOE has drawn up for the shutdown are “flawed,” Potter said. Likewise, skeleton crews could be more prone to accidents or safety violations, Potter said.
Shutdown-sparked cutbacks at DOE and Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (ETAS), the contractor that provides technical and administrative support for the feds at the two sites, could mean fewer people watching contractors, Potter said.
Potter also worries reindustrialization efforts at Portsmouth and Paducah could be set back by the current shutdown, which started Oct. 1.
The negative impact from shutdown-related layoffs was the subject of an article this week from the Paducah Sun newspaper.
The USW is also urging its members to write to government officials at the state and federal levels about their concerns.
“Unlike federal employees, contractors are not legally required to provide back-pay once the government reopens,” according to a copy of a letter drafted for union members to send to their elected officials. A bill has been proposed in the Senate to provide emergency relief to contractor employees.
“While I am not currently furloughed, the facility in which I work has begun to experience cuts due to the lapse in appropriations … we’ve been informed that a continued government shutdown will soon lead to furlough and potential shutdown of our facility,” according to the draft letter.
“We ask that you and your colleagues work swiftly and collaboratively to end the shutdown and pass legislation that ensures fair treatment for federal contractors, including retroactive compensation,” the letter goes on to say.
The elected union officers also fear DOE site contractors might use shutdown ambiguity to “restructure the work scope” outside of normal channels, Potter said.
“The management use of the shutdown is being leveraged to change the bargaining parameters that DOE has established …and also to implement different policy changes …. They are playing games with that,” Potter said.
In particular, Tipton and Potter both said Amenum-led Southern Ohio Cleanup has been reluctant to back some parts of the labor contract signed by the prior remediation team, Fluor-BWXT-Portsmouth. Southern Ohio did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Like AtkinsRéalis-led Mission Conversion Services Alliance, which is in charge of DUF6 and landlord work at both gaseous diffusion sites, Southern Ohio started its environmental work at Portsmouth this month.