Protesters Call for 'Peace' Jobs

Protesters call for 'peace' jobs
By Darren Fishell | Submitted by Bruce Gagnon | TimesRecord.com

Nearly 80 peace protesters gathered outside of the gates of Bath Iron Works on Saturday during the christening of the Wayne E. Meyer, urging the shipyard to convert to producing equipment for harvesting sustainable resources.

"Today our message is conversion," said Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. "We want to see taxpayer dollars go to produce more jobs in sustainable industry and to combat global warming."

The protesters, led by the Veterans for Peace, Chapter 001, marched from Bath's Waterfront Park to the gates of BIW to hear speeches from Gagnon, BIW maintenance mechanic Peter Woodruff and Carol Windham, who spoke on behalf of the event's keynote speaker Doris "Granny D" Haddock, among others.

Haddock, a peace activist best known for her 1999 cross-country walking trek at the age of 88 to petition for campaign finance reform and her 2004 U.S. Senate bid in New Hampshire, was the centerpiece of the day's events but was unable to attend due to illness. A small, plastic ship to be christened the USS Granny D was carried along the marching route in her honor.

"The only other women to have boats named for them are three queens of England," Haddock wrote. "I'm feeling very regal indeed.

"The big destroyer to be dedicated in these waters is a remarkable achievement in the defense of our nation," Haddock wrote, "but this little ship is the magical thing that makes our nation worth defending, for it cuts the deepest moral draughts and any veterans who know the sufferings of war will agree."

Marchers came from as far as Liberty and Kennebunkport.

"We don't do this very often, but it's becoming more and more necessary," Liberty resident Diane Shelplee said.

Jordan Shaw, a seminarian of the United Methodist Church and the performer of the christening, had religious reasons for marching.

"Jesus said, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' not 'kill everyone you know,'" Shaw said. "We need to support peace and not counter-productive killing."

Before the gates of BIW, Gagnon delivered the first speech, focusing on conversion's ability to create jobs and asserting that the ships built at BIW are not in the interests of national defense but rather national offense. Gagnon cited an October 2007 study authored by economics professor Robert Pollin and Heidi Garret-Peltier at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst that compares the economic benefits of military spending to those of alternative spending targets.

"If you spend $1 billion at BIW building warships," Gagnon said, "it's true: for every billion dollars you spend there you create 8,500 jobs. But if you take that same $1 billion and you invest it in home weatherization, per $1 billion you create more than 12,000 jobs. If you invest the same amount in building rail systems at BIW, you create more than 15,000 jobs."

The study actually estimates the job creation caused by a $1 billion investment in mass transit to be higher, at nearly 20,000 jobs. However, each alternative spending category (tax cuts, health care, education, mass transit, and construction or home weatherization), with the exception of education, has lower average wages and benefits relative to that of defense. Yet, the study shows defense spending to have the second worst level of compensation for the economy overall, with spending on education, again, estimated to provide the highest level of compensation.

"We could expand BIW's work force to as many as 12,000 employees," said Woodruff, a BIW maintenance mechanic. "We could work ourselves out of the severe recession we are working our way into. . We are standing at the edge of a green revolution in this country and we must take the steps to realize it."

Woodruff, who co-hosts a radio show called the Truth Radio Underground Experience (TRUE) with Gagnon on WBOR 91.1, Brunswick, claimed to be the first BIW worker ever to address a peace rally at the production facility.

"We're going through a whole effort of talking to workers because what we're hearing from them is that they would rather do something else," Gagnon said. "The peace movement can't do this by itself."

Woodruff lauded the skill and training of his co-workers at BIW and said that the time has come to turn efforts to the production of wind, tidal and hydro power equipment. And young Mainers, Woodruff said, are learning the skills necessary in state universities and community colleges to move forward with sustainable development.

Following the christening of the USS Granny D, Veterans for Peace member Jack Bussell also encouraged protesters to look toward the future.

"Someday, we will come here in celebration of what they are building," Bussell said. "But not today."