About 450 jobs will be affected by a swap in contractors for a federal aircraft maintenance program at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.
Sikorsky Support Services Inc., a subsidiary of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., has notified the Texas Workforce Commission the jobs will end by Oct. 31. That date marks the end of the company's maintenance and logistics contract for the Navy's T-34, T-44 and T-6 aircraft, company spokesman Paul Jackson said.
The Navy decided it would continue the work with a different contractor, Jackson said. The contract was awarded Aug. 27 to Mississippi-based L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace, according to the federal government's online contracting database. The contract is worth $452 million for work at several bases, including in Corpus Christi. It is unclear whether the jobs will transfer to L-3. Company representatives said Wednesday they would not comment on the contract at this time. Sikorsky reported the layoffs to the Texas Workforce Commission under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The act requires employers with more than 100 full-time employees that lay off more than 50 people to notify the state at least 60 days in advance. Reporting expected job cuts activates state-provided resources for displaced workers to help them find training programs or other jobs. Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend has been working with Sikorsky and letting the company know of those services, spokeswoman Monika De La Garza said. See SIKORSKY, 8C Considering the skills sets these workers have, they should be able to find other jobs in the aviation industry. It's just a matter of whether they're willing to travel to that job." Monika De La Garza, spokeswoman for Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend "Considering the skills sets these workers have, they should be able to find other jobs in the aviation industry," De La Garza said. "It's just a matter of whether they're willing to travel to that job." L-3 Communications provides services for aircraft, vehicles and ground support equipment through its subsidiaries such as Vertex Aerospace, which was formerly Raytheon Aerospace, according to L-3's website. Sikorsky designs, manufactures and services military and commercial aircraft, according to the company's website. The company makes the Black Hawk helicopter. Sikorsky also operates a facility at Chase Field in Beeville, where in 2007 the company located workers from Jacksonville, Fla., to upgrade Black Hawk helicopters for the Army and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency.
