Northrop Gets Workers Shelter After the Storm
Unlike many New Orleans residents who lost their homes and cars, David Omar Rivera hasn’t had any problem getting back to work.
Last Thursday, Rivera put in a full 12-hour shift working on a massive military ship under construction here, and then walked down the plank to his bunk bed at “Kamp Katrina.” As he laid his hard hat down on Bed 63, his temporary home, Rivera, 36, said: “Comparatively speaking, with what a lot of people have to deal with in this area, my accommodations are superb.”
The makeshift encampment at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s sprawling shipyard provides free room and board for displaced workers, many of whom lost their homes, were evacuated or have been unable to get around. The encampment is one way that the world’s largest military shipbuilder is hoping to get the yard back in full operation despite having a workforce that has been scattered by Hurricane Katrina.
Northrop, headquartered in Century City, is the nation’s third-largest defense contractor. Its shipyard is the largest employer in Louisiana, and how quickly it can get back to full operation is considered vital to economic recovery for the region.
“We really do owe it to our employees, to our community and to our shareholders to have our employees gainfully employed again as quickly as possible,” said Philip Teel, president of Northrop’s Ship Systems unit.
For the company, mitigating production delays could mean the difference between a profit and a loss. For the Pentagon, delays in deployment of the ships could have strategic implications -- Northrop builds amphibious landing craft for the Marines at the shipyard.
Less than half the 6,700 employees who normally work at the shipyard have been able to return even though it has been a month since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city. Many of the roads are still closed or blocked by police, and public transportation has been slow to restart.
“We had to set up a solution for ourselves,” said George Yount, a former rear admiral who is now Northrop vice president in charge of the shipyard.
The shipyard, sitting along the banks of the Mississippi River southwest of New Orleans, didn’t suffer extensive damage, so its main challenge has been getting the labor force to the site, Northrop executives said. One small building was completely destroyed, two barges sank and most of the power poles fell, but the majority of the facilities survived intact.
There are still nearly 900 workers whom Northrop has not been able to contact or account for. Executives fear that some are dead or have permanently moved to another state.
“They haven’t called in or we can’t track them,” shipyard supervisor Woody Oge said.
For the 2,000 employees who have said they want to return to work but can’t, Northrop has set up an encampment in the shipyard, converting two office trailers that had been used for training into housing for about 180 workers. The company also has requested use of a Navy barge with living quarters that can accommodate as many as 500.
Within weeks, Northrop hopes to have housing for as many as 1,000 workers displaced by the hurricane.
“It’s almost like mobilizing for war,” said Lou Hose, the shipyard’s emergency director.
The encampment provides three meals a day and has shower and laundry facilities where Northrop once held training for welders and structural fitters.
Yount estimates it will cost Northrop less than $20 a day per employee to house and feed them, or a potential total of about $20,000 a day.
The cost pales in comparison with the effect of losing 1,000 highly skilled workers. Hiring and training replacement workers such as welders, electricians and pipe fitters can cost as much as $50,000 per employee.
Avoiding production delays for ships -- which can take as many as four years to build at a cost of as much as $1 billion each -- also has incalculable cost benefits, Northrop executives said.
With some roads still impassable and others clogged with traffic, Northrop set up a bus system to transport workers to the shipyard. Nine buses ferry workers from as far as Baton Rouge -- about 90 miles.
The company also modified the workweek so that employees could put in 10-hour shifts four days a week and then spend three days doing what Northrop executives called “domestic restoration.”
Today, Northrop will also begin busing workers from a shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., about 110 miles away.
The Pascagoula shipyard suffered extensive damage to its metal fabrication facilities, but unlike the Avondale shipyard it has had most of its employees return to work.
At Avondale’s Kamp Katrina, Rivera sleeps in a room with 30 other workers, much like the barracks Rivera says he lived in while in the Navy.
He showed up at the shipyard right before Hurricane Katrina hit with only “my clothes on my back and nothing else,” while his wife, mother-in-law and three children evacuated to Houston.
“My wife and children had to live in a car for four days because they couldn’t find a place,” Rivera said. “So comparatively, I’m living large.”
Rivera, who keeps an eye on ship work as a so-called watch stander, said he hadn’t seen the family since the hurricane but wanted to continue working.
“You have to realize I’m the sole source of income for my family,” Rivera said. “I’m staying here because it makes it possible for me to take care of my family.”
