Layoffs begin for Ketchikan shipyard workers
- Ketchikan Daily News
- Jul 16
- 7 min read
By Scott Bowlen
Ketchikan Daily News
Vigor Alaska laid off about 40 union-represented Ketchikan Shipyard workers last Monday and Tuesday, according to representatives of Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 23.
About 18 people remain employed as Vigor winds down its operation of the state-owned shipyard. Thirteen or 14 of the remaining workers are represented by the union.
The Daily News was unable to speak with Vigor Marine Group spokesperson Benton Strong by presstime on Friday.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority that owns the Ketchikan Shipyard told the Daily News on Thursday that AIDEA was working on an announcement regarding the facility. An announcement was not available by presstime Friday.
This week’s layoffs are the latest dramatic circumstance that’s occurred since early March, when AIDEA informed Vigor that the state would not be extending its shipyard operating agreement with Vigor once the current agreement expires in November.
Vigor Alaska is a subsidiary of the Vigor Marine Group firm that operates several facilities in the Pacific Northwest. It has operated the Ketchikan Shipyard since 2012 when it purchased the yard’s former operator, the Ketchikan-based Alaska Ship & Drydock.
In 2005, ASD negotiated an operating agreement that had a 10-year term and the potential for two 10-year extensions, according to AIDEA information
AIDEA approved the first 10-year operating agreement extension with Vigor in 2015, with the possibility of a second 10-year extension being granted to Vigor next November.
But AIDEA Executive Director Randy Ruaro’s Feb. 28 letter to Vigor Alaska President Adam Beck was clear that AIDEA didn’t believe that Vigor had performed well enough to merit the next 10-year extension.
”Accordingly, Vigor’s term at the Shipyard expires of Nov. 30, 2025,” wrote Ruaro. H
He added near the end of the four-page letter that, although Vigor’s term would end in November, “AIDEA is willing to discuss a plan for wind-down and demobilization of up to one year through March 1, 2026.”
According to the letter, AIDEA would issue an “(Request for Information) seeking new opportunities” for the shipyard within a few weeks,.
“I expect that it will also be necessary to have on-site visits with prospective occupants,” Ruaro wrote in the Feb. 28 letter.
On March 8, responding to an inquiry from the Daily News, Ruaro wrote in an email that AIDEA anticipated that an RFI would be issued “in the next 30 days,” and that the RFI will be a public document on the Alaska Public Notice website.
As of Friday, neither an RFI nor Request for Proposals has been issued. AIDEA, with the exception of general but still uncertain comments made during a public meeting in early May, has not released information about its process for, or progress in, securing a new operator for the Ketchikan Shipyard.
In mid-March, AIDEA and Vigor released a brief joint statement saying that the parties had “commenced discussions this week to ensure the Ketchikan Shipyard remains operational.”
“After AIDEA’s non-renewal notice for Vigor’s current contract, both parties are discussing ways to extend our working relationship and operations at the shipyard beyond 2025,” according to the statement.
The announcement didn’t provide much further detail about what was being discussed, beyond the idea that “Both organizations are working together on potential opportunities to extend our working relationship by exploring new opportunities and partnerships to improve the shipyard’s ability to serve Alaska’s maritime needs.
“This is critical for the more than 100 family-wage jobs which support the Ketchikan economy year-round,” stated the announcement.
In April, AIDEA rejected a suite of Vigor proposals that would allow for Vigor to continue operate the yard, and said that it would “promptly identify” a new operator for the Ketchikan Shipyard.
“Regardless of whether VIGOR chooses to honor its contractual commitments and continue operating the Ketchikan Shipyard through November 30, or decides to relinquish possession and cease operations earlier, AIDEA will promptly identify a new operator,” according to a Thursday press release from AIDEA. “While it was necessary for AIDEA to terminate the existing use and occupancy agreement to maximize the shipyard’s potential, AIDEA is committed to minimizing the impact on Vigor’s existing workforce during this transition.”
AIDEA held a public “community update” meeting on May 4 at the Ted Ferry Civic Center, during which Ruaro indicated that AIDEA wanted to find new shipyard operator quickly and hoped to avoid a gap between the new operator’s arrival and the exit of the current operator.
But few specifics were provided about the process for selecting a new operator — or the timeline of a transition, and what accommodations might be possible for current shipyard workers if there is a gap between operators.
The approximately two-hour meeting was attended by about 75 people, many of whom were shipyard workers or their family members. Other attendees were Vigor officials, representatives of the Alaska Marine Highway System, the former owner of Alaska Ship & Drydock, and community leaders.
A substantial portion of the wide-ranging meeting, much of which was a question-and-answer format, focused on workforce issues.
As for a new operator, Ruaro said the AIDEA board had decided to go to a Request for Proposal process rather than start with an RFI — but not quite yet.
Since the non-extension announcement, potentially interested operators have been getting in touch with AIDEA, according to Ruaro.
“There are a number of entities interested in a transition with the shipyard,” he said. “We will give those entities a short period of time to perhaps reach an agreement to come in. If they do not, in a short period of time, we will go to — not an RFI — we’ll go to an RFP. The board is set to skip the RFI process, and we will go direct to an RFP.”
On May 7, Vigor sent a letter to Ketchikan Gateway Borough Mayor Rodney Dial as part of a formal federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice, advising the borough that Vigor Alaska would close permanently on Nov. 30, and that layoffs for the closure would begin on July 7.
The letter stated that 72 employees would be affected, 64 of whom were union employees represented by the Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 23.
The May 7 letter was the last public communication or announcement about the shipyard from Vigor or AIDEA.
On Monday, the Ketchikan Shipyard was on the agenda for the AIDEA board of directors meeting, as one of several topics to be discussed in executive session.
After the executive session was concluded, it was announced that no actions had been taken on the items discussed.
On Thursday, the Daily News spoke with Randy Golding, regional manager of Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 23
“Layoffs occurred Monday the seventh and Tuesday the eighth,” Golding said. “There were roughly about 40 members that were let go or laid off.”
Of the remaining members, “they’re expecting to be laid off anytime,” he said.
There is hope that a new operator would be coming on board, but the only information that workers have is “primarily speculation,” Golding said.
Both Golding and Danny Van Nostrand, who’s a union shop steward and steel supervisor for Vigor, spoke of hearing that AIDEA was in discussions with a specific company and about a potential time frame for that company to start operating the shipyard. However, as Van Nostrand said, “we’re running on a lot of speculation.”
Van Nostrand is among the workers remaining employed at present. He said that would end as soon as AIDEA signed a contract with the new operator.
“We’re here just doing, you know, things, cleaning the yard, stuff like that,” he said. “We’re not doing anything that’s generating income for Vigor. We’re just basically maintaining the yard until we get laid off.”
Van Nostrand and Golding noted that some shipyard workers had already left between the time of the May meeting and this week’s layoffs. The estimates ranged between 10 and 20 workers.
During the May meeting, there was discussion about how the unemployment insurance benefit of $370 per week is unable to sustain a family in Ketchikan, and what, if anything, could be done to help workers in a transition period.
Van Nostrand said Friday that the union had been “in talks with politicians for the last four months, and federal and state politicians, and we’ve also been in contact with AIDEA and the Labor Department trying to come up with added resources.
“And so there’s the idea that AIDEA has that there will be an operator coming into the yard, and that the layoff will just be a temporary kind of a thing,” Van Nostrand said. “We were trying to get added benefits for people so we didn’t lose our whole workforce in the meantime. And all of that failed.
“So every politician failed us, AIDEA failed us, and the only people who stepped up was the union,” he continued. “They actually got us an added benefit that they’re paying on top of unemployment, because unemployment is only $370 a week, and there’s just no way you can survive on this island on that amount of money.”
He said that the union-supplied benefit would give people the ability to stay here until the new operator is “supposedly” going to start, adding that the operator and timing information was based on speculation.
Van Nostrand cited another type of assistance that was available, coordinated by the Alaska Department of Labor and related to the type of layoffs that are occurring.
“It a different situation than just typical layoffs,” he said. “You know, sometimes people get laid off and then called back in. But since this was a termination of all jobs and the whole business. It opened up a lot of opportunity for our employees to where they can go and be trained in a different field, go back to college on grants.”
The Daily News was unable to speak with department source about particulars on Friday.
Van Nostrand said that the circumstances of the shipyard changes have been tough on the workers there.
“It’s been tough, yeah, and that was part of it, too, was just the emotional drama and the state of, you know, constant depression,” he said. “And, you know, we worked for months knowing that we are not going to have a job. And it was a tough time. We finished our project successfully, fortunately, and we didn’t have any injuries, but people’s mindsets were definitely affected during that time period.”
• This story originally appeared in the Ketchikan Daily News.
