Defense Force Management: The 1990 Reduction-In-Force at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard: Nsiad-91-306

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the reduction-in-force (RIF) at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, focusing on: (1) the reasons for RIF; (2) its impact on women and blacks; (3) the appropriateness of using separate job categories for nuclear and ocean engineering work; and (4) the layoff rates for white-collar positions versus blue-collar positions.
GAO found that: (1) because of its diminishing work load, Mare Island requested authority to reduce its work force; (2) between January and September 1990, about 900 employees retired or transferred from Mare Island; (3) due to RIF, Mare Island laid off 444 employees based on its selection of positions for elimination and application of RIF retention factors; (4) Mare Island did not recognize that RIF would have a disproportionate impact on women and blacks until after layoff notices were issued, at which time it took steps to retain or rehire some minorities who had lost their jobs; (5) Mare Island could not carry out the Department of Defense's (DOD) required equal employment opportunity impact analysis, since the Navy did not issue the implementing instructions until 1 month after RIF, and the instructions included little guidance on how to interpret and use the analysis; (6) since Mare Island used separate competitive levels for ocean engineering and nuclear positions, about 50 employees who could have competed for such positions were dismissed; (7) the layoff rate for women was 2.7 percent greater than the layoff rate for men and the layoff rate for blacks was about 4.8 percent greater than the layoff rate for other employees; and (8) most employees laid off were blue-collar employees, but the ratio of blue-collar workers to white-collar workers after RIF was consistent with the ratio that existed in January 1990.