A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation to shield America’s public shipyards from federal hiring freezes and mass layoffs as the Trump administration has sought to shrink the federal civilian workforce.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., along with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, announced Tuesday the Protecting Public Naval Shipyards, or PSNY, Act, which would exempt certain jobs at public shipyards from workforce reductions.
“Our shipyard workforce represents an essential component of our national defense and preparedness — they should have never been subjected to this administration’s ill-considered hiring freezes,” Shaheen said in a release.
The bill seeks to exempt America’s four public shipyards: Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Washington state and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Hawaii.
In doing so, the release said, the bill “ensures that the maintenance and overhaul of America’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet continues uninterrupted.”
The bill lists a host of civilian positions to be excluded from workforce reductions and hiring freezes, including welders, mechanics and positions supporting nuclear maintenance and refueling, among others.
The bill also eliminates a hiring cap for these positions.
Currently, the Navy can only hire 1,550 external personnel across all naval institutions each month, and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard alone needs 550 new personnel every year to keep up with submarine fleet maintenance, according to Shaheen’s office.
Shaheen, a senior member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and co-chair of the U.S. Senate Navy Caucus, and Collins wrote a letter to the Navy in February requesting that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard be insulated from the Office of Personnel Management’s deferred resignation initiative for federal employees.
The program, known as the “Fork in the Road,” began Jan. 28 with an email to federal workers outlining four new pillars for the federal workforce. One of those pillars called for a reduced workforce.
Shaheen and Collins argued in their letter that cutting down the size of the shipbuilding workforce would threaten national security by increasing the amount of time submarine maintenance would take.
The Defense Department responded by agreeing to exempt the shipyard workforce from the Pentagon hiring freeze, which was outlined in a memo.
But Shaheen’s office claimed in its Tuesday release that there are issues with the implementation of the exemption.
On April 17, Shaheen, Collins and King visited Portsmouth Naval Shipyard with Navy Secretary John Phelan — his first time visiting a public shipyard since his confirmation. During the visit, the senators raised concerns with Phelan about the hiring freeze, according to a release from Shaheen’s office.
Less than a month later, on May 13, the senators sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management, asking for the processing of almost 150 personnel who’d received job offers for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and had already been approved by Phelan, but who weren’t working yet.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged to speed up the onboarding process at his first appearance in front of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on June 18.
But Sheehan’s office said the Office of Personnel Management has slowed that process, raising concerns about retaining workers facing lengthy hiring times. Welding school graduates and recent college graduates aren’t likely to wait months to be onboarded and will instead take jobs elsewhere, Shaheen’s office told Military Times.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.
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