Clinton Vows ‘Aggressive’ Help for Defense Workers

Facing a crowd of skeptical, and at times hostile, sailors and civilian military workers who stand to lose their jobs when five Bay Area naval facilities are shut down, President Clinton on Friday promised “aggressive, tough and unrelenting” efforts to help the area’s dislocated workers and depressed communities.

“I make this pledge to you,” Clinton said. “The men and women who won the Cold War will not be left out in the cold by a grateful nation.”

Clinton vowed to cut the federal red tape that has slowed efforts to prepare the bases for conversion to civilian uses. He also pledged government aid “from job training to resume-writing” for the soon-to-be-unemployed workers.

Speaking beneath gray skies on an Alameda Naval Air Station pier before the guided-missile cruiser Arkansas and the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, Clinton outlined his proposals for easing the impact of the impending loss of 33,000 jobs.

Friday’s appearance marked the President’s fourth visit to California, which holds enormous economic and electoral significance for the prospects of his presidency.

The state’s economy continues to lag behind the nation’s, while Clinton’s poll numbers have steadily declined in the state since shortly after his inauguration.

As he made his way to the speech site, Clinton shook hands with workers, some of whom pleaded: “Keep us working!” and “Don’t let them close our base!”

The crowd of about 5,000 military and civilian workers received the President’s remarks with polite but muted applause, and it was not hard to find voices of disaffection and despair.

“He’s trying a hard sell on us, and I’m not buying,” said Larry Wagner, an engine repairman at the Alameda Naval Aviation Depot who said he expects to lose his job within the next year or two.

“I don’t believe Clinton will deliver what he’s promising. Where’s the money for defense conversion going to come from? Somebody’s going to get hurt,” he said.

Clinton in July accepted the recommendation of the federal Base Closure and Realignment Commission to shut down the Alameda Naval Air Station and Aviation Depot, a naval station at Treasure Island, the Oakland Naval Hospital and the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, along with 125 other facilities in other parts of the nation.

Congress is expected to ratify the recommendation this fall, and the bases will be closed over the next four years. The Pentagon estimates that the Bay Area closings will cost 33,000 jobs directly and one in 20 civilian jobs overall in the East Bay area.

The losses are especially painful for California, which has an unemployment rate of 9.8%, compared to the national rate of 6.8%.

Before the speech, Clinton stressed the importance of reviving the California economy. “It is dragging down the incomes and prosperity of people in every other state,” he said.

The Oakland Tribune greeted Clinton on Friday with a blistering editorial, bannered across the front page, that bewailed the “staggering” economic impact of the closings and demanded to see a detailed plan for rebuilding the area’s jobs base.

“We’ve heard you promise $5 billion to ease the transition for communities hit hard by base closings,” the newspaper said, referring to a plan released by the President in July. “But your secretary of defense, Les Aspin, has told us the Bay Area will not receive any special consideration when it comes to distributing the money.

“Frankly, we don’t like that plan. It seems unfair to tell the Bay Area, which stands to lose more than half the jobs being eliminated because of base closings nationwide, that it is not entitled to special consideration.”

Diane Lester, a bookkeeper at the air station’s receiving warehouse, put the loss in more personal terms. She said that when her job is eliminated, she will be forced to leave the area to seek work.

“I’ve already talked to my parents about taking in my kids,” she said.

Clinton also traveled to the nearby Naval Supply Center in Oakland to meet with the East Bay Conversion and Reinvestment Commission, a group of 25 area political and business leaders, to discuss proposals for converting shuttered facilities to civilian use.

Panel members told him that the area needs federal help to speed the environmental cleanup of the installations, which are polluted with industrial and chemical wastes.

The local officials also pleaded for help in releasing the property to potential developers so that plans can move forward to create a new port facility for large freighters.

The Port of Oakland wants federal approval for deepening two main shipping channels to accommodate the new container ships arriving from Asia and Europe.

Clinton said he had directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, whose reviews have stymied the dredging project, to “get on with it.”

He also said the EPA had set “firm deadlines” for cleaning up the polluted facilities so that they can be converted to civilian use.

Clinton said he foresees the area someday becoming a hub of high-technology, aerospace and manufacturing activity. He said the Navy plans a conference here in October to discuss ways to speed the transformation.

“On the surface, you have paid an enormous price,” Clinton told the waterfront crowd, acknowledging that “the largest impact of the latest round of base closings came here in the Bay Area and Northern California.”

But, he added: “If we do the right thing, it means a better future for America.”

Dolores Tiburcio, an environmental compliance officer at the Mare Island shipyard, said she was disappointed that Clinton was not more specific about the future of the yard and her job, but she gave him credit for at least stepping up to the painful issue.

“I want to hear him talk about the specifics on how they will convert these places to private industry,” she said. However, “it took a lot of guts for him to come here today.”

Clinton flew from Alameda to Denver, where he signed a Colorado wilderness preservation measure into law.

He then went to Vail, Colo., for two days of rest and a round of golf with former President Gerald R. Ford.