Typically, members of Maine’s congressional delegation take military or Department of Defense leaders on tours of the state’s top defense sites, Bath Iron Works and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery.
Wednesday, however, it was the federal secretary of labor who was shown around the two sites.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she wanted Thomas Perez to see two training programs that are being used to provide skills to a new generation of shipyard workers.
One is an apprenticeship program operated by the Kittery shipyard and the other is a training center set up by the management and unions at BIW. Both work with community colleges in programs offering classroom work and hands-on training.
Before the tours, Collins and Perez praised each other: Collins said the Labor Secretary shares her “passion” for making sure workers are trained, while Perez said the Maine senator has shown “dogged advocacy” for the idea that well-trained workers can get jobs with incomes that lead to the middle class.
Perez said he was eager to see the training programs that Collins said could be models for the rest of the country.
The idea of collaborating with community colleges was attractive to Perez, as President Obama has proposed two years of community college for free.
Community colleges, Perez said, “are the secret sauce of success” for job-seekers and the companies that hire them.
Collins declined to weigh in on an ongoing labor dispute at BIW, where the largest union has sued owner General Dynamics over a management plan to change the parameters of workers’ jobs. The company said reclassifying the jobs will allow it to cut costs, which might help it land a $10-billion U.S. Coast Guard contract.
Collins said she doesn’t get involved in labor contract issues, but she urged workers and management to cooperate to help the shipyard land more shipbuilding contracts.
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