No one can tell the people of Louisiana how this story will end, but one thing is certain, it never achieved the goals that millions of dollars of tax payers money was supposed to bring about. Avondale Shipyard was a mainstay for thousands of workers in Louisiana for many, many years prior to being bought out. They were taken over by Northrop, a large corporation who had long ties working with the military.
Northrop has since spun off its shipyard operations to Huntington Ingalls and announced they would close Avondale when their present military contract is fulfilled in early 2013. According to news reports up to 5200 jobs could be affected by the closure. Northrop made notice that the final two Navy LPD-17 class vessels would be built at its Pascagoula facility in Mississippi instead of at Avondale in Louisiana.
Former La. Governor Foster made a deal with Northrop in 2003 and pledged $56 million to upgrades at the facility at Avondale and create a ship building program to train new skilled workers to work at the plant. Also to keep employment at the plant at 5200. Northrop never reached that employment benchmark they agreed too for every quarter and there fore returned approximately $35 million to the state in March 2011. (Source: Times Picayune 6/4/11)
A report to keep Avondale open was reported in the Times Picayune of 10/19/11 where by Louisiana Governor Jindal offered Huntington a $214 million package that would save 3850 jobs at Avondale if Huntington can find another company to partner with. The incentives would pay for work force retraining and updates to the facility. That is exactly what Gov. Foster offered Northrop. Does that mean the facility was not updated and workers were not trained under the Foster package? Is this just another duplication and a waste of tax payers money? What happened to those workers that were retrained under the Foster package? Are they now working at the Pascagoula shipyard? That certainly would be a plus for Mississippi having trained skilled workers paid for by Louisiana tax payers.
The Times Picayune carried eight stories concerning the Avondale situation between June 4 and November 30, 2011 and not one story asked the question about retraining workers or upgrading the facility as mentioned in the paragraph above. Some thing is very wrong with the Times Picayune reporting. Was any inquiries made to the state to see how much updating to Avondale was actually made and if those updates are still operational for who ever takes over Avondale. How many retrained skilled workers are still employed at Avondale and exactly how many were retrained. The taxpayers who are footing the bill should be given this information.
What really has happened is that Northrop, a very large corporation who had long ties working with the federal government on military contracts wanted to get into the shipyard business for Navy contracts and bought out Avondale to eliminate competition. That is what large American compaines have been doing for many years and then when things get tough they end up spinning off the company they bought to cut their losses and of course they lay off workers.
The Northrop-Avondale project was a failed government-private enterprise using tax payers money to create jobs and now the Jindal administration is offering almost 4 times more thanwhat Foster agreed to do the exact same thing but this time it concerns 3850 jobs. Any time state governments give corporate welfare to business ventures they should have the common sense to give a detail account to the people of exactly what their tax dollars paid for and exactly what took place. So far that has not happened.
By the way, to those who have independent thought, remember it was the federal government that created those jobs for Northrop and Avondale with their military contracts and not Louisiana's governors despite the state's corporate welfare with tax payers money.
