Editor, Gazette-Journal:
In 1999, Newport News Shipyard workers went on strike for better pay and benefits. The shipyard benefitted in the short run by not having to pay all those workers, but the extended ripple effect was far more costly.
Machining companies, steel fabricators, electrical supply companies, pipe fabricators, insulation manufacturers and hundreds of other companies could not ship completed items, because there were no shipyard workers to install them. Specialized tradespeople with skills backed by years of on-the-job training and apprenticeship education decided to walk away from the waterfront in favor of work that was less physically demanding. Some specialized companies went out of business because supplying the shipyard was their main contract.
The ripple effect of the current administration’s attempt to make our government smaller and less costly to the American taxpayers may be a cost saver in the short run, but will that savings pan out?
Fifty to a hundred thous...