THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 26, 1995 TAG: 9505260490
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Newport News Shipbuilding laid off 138 workers Thursday and will grant early retirement to 500 more next week.
The cutbacks come just days after the giant Peninsula shipyard withdrew its bid to help build three giant crude oil tankers for a Canadian oil consortium.
The shipyard decided to drop out of the running to build the 120,000-ton tankers because it didn't have the work space or the time to build them.
Newport News Shipbuilding, which employs about 19,800, handed out layoff notices Thursday to 138 workers in the pipe and machinery installation departments. The layoffs take effect in 60 days.
It also offered early retirement to 1,400 employees 55 or older with at least 10 years' service in the shipyard. Eligible employees have until May 31 to accept the buyout offer. About 500 have accepted so far, yard spokesman Michael Hatfield said on Thursday.
``We're prepared to accept as many as come forward,'' he said.
The early retirements will become effective sometime before the end of the year.
Despite a growing backlog of commercial shipbuilding, the yard is going ahead with plans to shrink its payroll to between 14,000 and 15,000 employees by the end of 1996.
Commercial ships are simpler to build than Navy vessels and require a smaller work force, but they take up the same space in the shipyard, said Edward A. Waryas Jr., yard director of commercial marketing.
It was a matter of space and time that led Newport News Shipbuilding to withdraw from the bidding. The Canadian company, Hibernia Lifting, needs the shuttle tankers by 1997, but Newport News Shipbuilding has already committed to build up to 20 45,000-ton Double Eagle product tankers for other customers by 1998.
Those double-hull product tankers combined with the three aircraft carriers in various stages of construction will keep the shipyard busy for the next few years.
The shipyard is also modernizing its steel production facilities and lengthening its giant Dry Dock 12, which will lead to production delays.
``We hate to turn away opportunities,'' Waryas said. ``But we looked at the schedule and it certainly would have been a bad decision to try to do that one.''
Shipyard executives have said commercial shipbuilding work is vital to its long-term viability in the face of waning Navy orders of carriers and submarines.
It began pursuing the Canadian tanker project before it sold its first Double Eagle last fall.
KEYWORDS: LAYOFFS by CNB