Shipyard employees fear layoffs coming

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) - Within three days, the Navy announced the canceled deployment of the USS Truman and postponed the overhaul of USS Lincoln.

The decisions are bold reminders of oncoming sequestration cuts, set to directly affect the economy of Hampton Roads. 

"I already know that we are going to be affected," Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard worker DeVon Royal said. "Regardless, we are going to be affected."

The work to overhaul the Lincoln can only be done at Newport News Shipbuilding. 

"Our income is based on the contracts with the government and the Navy," Royal said. "If they don't have the contracts out of Washington to send the ships here, we won't have any work."

The Navy decided it was best not to spend the money on the Lincoln's overhaul, fearing there would be no money to spent on more immediate actions.

"Any time they're talking about possible work reduction here, it concerns me and my membership very much," President of Local 8888 Arnold Outlaw told 10 On Your Side.

Outlaw is in charge of the local ship builders union. He said approximately  4,000 men and women are working on the USS Roosevelt.  

When that work is done, they were scheduled to start on the Lincoln.  But without a contract, the workers would have no place to go.

"It's going to create some fear," Outlaw said. "No one wants to lose their job.  It will trickle down from the top supervisors all the way down to the stands out there trying to sell food."

The shipyard union is planning to take a trip to Washington, D.C. in the next couple weeks to convince lawmakers to find a solution.

Next Thursday, the USS Lincoln will be moved from Naval Station Norfolk to the Newport News Shipyard. It will stay there until the work contracts are granted.