U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal tried Monday to step up public pressure on the Navy to keep a maintenance program for presidential helicopters in Connecticut.
Flanked by Teamsters at a union hall in Stratford, the senator said more than 30 employees of Sikorsky Aircraft could lose their jobs if the Navy follows through on a plan to maintain the choppers in Florida.
The company said Monday that thousands of its employees live in the lower Naugatuck Valley.
Even so, the senator said, “It is more than just jobs at stake here.”
“This work is among the most important done on any of our aircraft in the United States, because these helicopters carry the president,” Blumenthal said. “There is no room — none — for error in the maintenance work on these helicopters. Therefore the best trained, the most expert workers in the United States ought to be doing this maintenance work.”
Sikorsky said this month that 85 jobs would be “impacted” if the Navy followed through with a plan to move maintenance of the Marine One helicopters to its “Fleet Readiness Center” in Florida to save money.
Blumenthal said the savings would turn out to be “a mirage.”
“If the Navy does its homework … it will decide to leave this work here,” he said.
Video of the event is embedded below.
Blumenthal urged Navy officials to continue talks with Sikorsky’s parent company, Lockheed, and sign a contract to keep the maintenance work local.
The article continues after letter sent to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus by Blumenthal and other members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation.
The senator’s appeal comes during a complicated period for the company.
On the one hand, it’s in the midst of executing a $1.24 billion contract to produce the next generation of Marine One presidential helicopters.
On the other, Lockheed announced 350 layoffs last month, and warned more could be coming.
Blumenthal said Monday that if Sikorsky loses the maintenance work, 34 people would lose their jobs and 51 more would be “realigned” to other work.
“At this point, we’re not speculating on where or how those workers would be moved,” he said. “Our objective is to prevent the relocation of this work so that those employees stay where they are now.”
“There is no reason that the Navy should be in effect testing the capability of some other facility to do this work. They know Sikorsky can do it reliably and safely,” Blumenthal said.
He said if his appeals to the Navy fail he’ll go to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.
But he said he’s been in talks with Naval and company officials with a view to resolving the impasse “in the very near future.”
Lou Mangini, who works for U.S. Rep Rosa DeLauro, appeared alongside Blumenthal to say his boss agrees with the senator.
Reading a prepared statement from DeLauro, Mangini lamented “another mistake that the Navy has made on the Marine One program.”
He noted that a decade ago the Navy initially awarded the contract to build the next generation of presidential helicopters to a different company before changing its mind after lobbying from Sikorsky and Connecticut politicians.
“This is the wrong move, and we will keep on this … until we get the Navy to see this work belongs here at Sikorsky,” Mangini said.
Paul Jackson, a spokesman for Sikorsky, said in an email that the company “appreciates the support of our elected officials.”
“Sikorsky has provided quality Special Progressive Aircraft Rework (SPAR) and support to Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX) for more than four decades,” Jackson said. “We understand the budget pressures on the Department of Defense, and we have worked hard to lower the program costs and provide an affordable offer that maintains the quality and reliability so critical to this mission.”
The Valley Indy reached out to Blumenthal’s GOP-endorsed opponent, Dan Carter, for comment Monday. In a prepared statement, he derided the senator’s press conference as “lip service.”
Last week three Shelton lawmakers — state Sen. Kevin Kelly and state Reps. Jason Perillo and Benjamin McGorty — released a prepared statement lamenting the news of the Navy’s decision.
