Speedier thaw sought for shipyard hiring freeze

A bureaucratic tangle that ensued over President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze and its impacts on Navy shipyards appears to be untangling, with the possibility that the yards soon might be fully exempted, officials said.

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, one of four public yards nationwide, is the state’s largest industrial employer with more than 5,600 civilian and military workers.

Trump’s Jan. 23 federal hiring freeze allowed heads of executive departments or agencies to exempt jobs deemed necessary for national security, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work on Feb. 1 provided an exemption for shipyard jobs that “perform direct management of inventory and direct maintenance of equipment.”

Before the freeze, Pearl Harbor shipyard had planned on hiring more than 500 workers this fiscal year.

Hawaii’s congressional delegation Friday called on Sean Stackley, acting secretary of the Navy, to streamline the process for hiring shipyard workers.

“Recently, the Defense Department announced that employees of Navy public shipyards and other employees that directly support the shipyards would be exempt,” U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz’s office said in a news release. “But the process for requesting exemptions at the shipyards would still leave positions open for weeks, if not longer.”

Before the Defense Department announcement of shipyard exemptions, Schatz’s office said Trump’s hiring freeze was preventing shipyards from hiring engineers, acquisition workforce personnel, trade mechanics, radiological and emergency personnel, regulatory compliance workers and others who are necessary to maintain the Navy’s surface and submarine fleets.

The delay in hiring — including replacing workers lost through attrition — comes as the Navy reached 33,500 civilian shipyard positions last year to reduce a ship maintenance backlog that accumulated over a decade of increased operations.

The Navy’s Office of Civilian Human Resources took a conservative approach to doling out exemptions and told the shipyards they couldn’t make any hiring decisions until a master database was created to examine thousands of positions for exemption — a process that would take weeks if not months, officials said.

Schatz personally spoke to Stackley about shortfalls in the system.

“In our opinion, it would be easier, less expensive, and further in line with the intent of Department of Defense’s exemption authority to establish an automatic exemption process that clears a class of positions based on occupation code and command,” Hawaii’s congressional delegation and other lawmakers said in a letter to Stackley.

Given the concerns, lawmakers urged Stackley to “retract the (current) policy and issue guidance that offers immediate exemption authority for those federal civilians working at the public shipyards and depots that keep our ships and submarines ready.”

Officials said Stackley was reviewing the exemption issue Friday.

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, which has 5,126 civilian workers and about 500 sailors, said, “We are working in accordance with the Department of Defense on the exemption process.”

Schatz previously introduced legislation to exempt shipyard workers and other employees who directly support the yards from the hiring freeze. U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono is a co-sponsor.