BIW builds Maine’s workforce
Employers across Maine are coming up with new strategies to expand and retain their valuable workers. Your recent article, “Report highlights Bath Iron Works’ efforts to draw in new workers,” highlights many of the workforce recruiting and retention strategies undertaken by one of Maine’s largest employers.
I want to publicly thank BIW for its tremendous workforce investments, totaling more than $11 million over six years. Given that 60% of BIW’s new employees have less than five years of experience, education, training and mentoring are a critical part of their success. To address these needs, BIW built critical partnerships with the Maine Community College System, Maine Maritime Academy, the University of Maine System, the Roux Institute, high schools, and career and technical schools. By designing and providing state-of-the-art training for employees, BIW is, literally, building the workforce of Maine’s future.
It’s important to acknowledge another key support BIW is providing its workers. Many of these new employees are parents of young children. Thus, BIW has stepped up in a major way to support the critical workforce behind its workforce: child care. BIW invested in the Bath YMCA’s child care program expansion, resulting in services to 150 additional children. This investment is grounded in the knowledge that without accessible, affordable, quality child care, too many parents cannot go to work. Providing more access to child care helps families prosper, improves employee productivity, and benefits our state’s economy.
The economic stresses of the pandemic and are still affecting Maine’s fragile child care sector. It is my hope that the new Legislature will continue to make fixing the child care market a priority, continue to support the child care workforce, and incentivize more employers — big and small, urban and rural — to partner with child care providers to rebuild and expand quality child care for working families. Doing so will support our common goal of achieving a more prosperous Maine.
Jason Judd,
executive director, Educate Maine
Putin’s dream come true
Congratulations, Mr. Putin, and all those like you! Finally, you have received the “gift” you had hoped for, and in varied ways invested in, that can help you destabilize America, if not the world. Gift wrapped by the majority of 2024 voters, often mislead by incorrect information, the “useful idiot” Trump has now been delivered.
A mentally unstable, unethical person, greedy for power and financial gain, needy for adoration and loyalty while, at the same time, being ignorant about the responsibilities of this great democracy to its people and the world, and who does not respect its laws, is just whom you know how to influence, because you are so much smarter than he is. Tickle his ego, make him feel powerful, dangle the carrot of political and personal gain in front of him, and he will, in all likelihood, carry your water, at least some of it.
Sadly, he is also very useful to so many powerful people in this country, who have waited for and now support somebody like him, because of how easily he can be influenced or manipulated to further their agendas, as long as they are able to sell it as a win-win for him. Leonard Leo and his neo-conservative agenda, Stephen Miller and his racist and anti-immigrant agenda, Steve Bannon and his “tear it all down in this country” agenda, to name a few, they all know how to play on the “useful idiot’s” ignorance, his insecurities and his own biases.
Taught by his deceased long-time personal corrupt lawyer, Roy Cohn, to execute revenge and to win at all cost, to lie and cheat without remorse to get what you want, and to not care about the damage inflicted on other people, those attitudes make him the perfect tool for others.
Get ready for some stressful times ahead. And help for the little guy? Don’t bet on it!
Sigrid R.E. Fischer-Mishler,
Harpswell
Brunswick deserves more from MRRA
The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority continues to shrug off responsibility for the disastrous release of PFAS-laden aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) at the Brunswick Executive Airport in August. MRRA’s “Environmental Update,” issued last week, contains no plans to assist nearby residents whose drinking water wells are likely to be impacted, dismissing their valid concerns by quoting a statement from the Navy that “it’s too early to say whether the new release has affected the wells or if it is a result of legacy releases or other causes.”
This misses the point entirely. Residents in the known path of historical contamination from the former Brunswick Naval Air Station are reasonably worried that toxic PFAS from the August “spill,” one of the largest in U.S. history, will also end up in their drinking water.
Instead of dithering over exactly when the effects of the August disaster will manifest in drinking water, MRRA should assist residents now, before the inevitable happens. Mitigation measures, such as connection to town water or installation of filtration systems, are available and should be implemented while there is time to prevent health impacts.
Unfortunately, MRRA has signaled no plans to help. Its “Environmental Update” includes a lengthy discussion of past contamination at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, yet the August AFFF disaster occurred squarely on MRRA’s watch.
And this could happen again: MRRA controls additional stores of PFAS-containing AFFF in aging systems and still has not given the public an account of the cause of the August incident. A similar spill at Hangar 6 could jeopardize the public drinking water supply in Brunswick. MRRA has rebuffed the Brunswick Town Council’s September resolution to shut off this system, citing “contractual obligations” to airport tenants.
MRRA was originally created by the state Legislature as a public municipal corporation. “Redevelopment” is in its name, and is a laudable goal, but should not be the only focus. The statute also says that MRRA may “[p]rovide for the public safety” and “ensure the public safety.” Brunswick, and the communities downstream, deserve this.
Christine Foster,
Brunswick