Military downsizing could mean thousands of positions cut at JBLM
Jun 17, 2015, 3:56 PM | Updated: Jun 18, 2015, 9:38 am
Cameron Ames is one of the many who could lose his job is the military downsizes. He's already trying to come up with a backup plan. (KIRO Radio/Sara Lerner)
(KIRO Radio/Sara Lerner)
Potential military downsizing could mean thousands of positions lost at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Governor Jay Inslee’s new subcabinet on military downsizing met for the first time Wednesday. The governor says the idea is to prepare now for a likely military reduction that would hit Washington hard, both active duty and civilians.
There are 110,000 Department of Defense civilians working in Washington, half of them at JBLM.
Cameron Ames is one of the many who could lose his job. He’s spent his entire career in the military and now he’s worried about his position.
“On a one to ten [scale],” he said. “I’m probably at about a seven. Yeah, I’m kinda worried.”
Ames has two roles on base: one as a hydraulics technician and another as president of his federal workers union, AFGE 1501. It does seem like a workforce reduction is inevitable, he said.
“To be honest, it is a little bit stressful because, you know, you’re kind of in limbo,” he said.
Even though he is hopeful there won’t be cuts, he’s already working on a backup plan.
“I’m thinking, ‘OK, am I going to have a job in a couple years?'” Ames said. “So I’m starting to plan for that. You know, I need to finish my Bachelor’s degree and different things like that.”
But working outside the military is not what Ames wants to do. Even for civilian employees like Ames, leaving that work is really leaving a lifestyle, a tight-knit community. He says he imagines civilian life would be different in a business sense, too. He calls it product-oriented.
“We’re more about taking care of whatever mission is at hand and the mission could be anything,” he said. “We’re not worried about buying or selling anything. Our military is a voluntary force and I think people join for patriotic reasons.”
Avoiding a military downsizing would take a major — and surprising — compromise in D.C. The ultimate deadline for a national budget is the end of September, but federal officials have told Governor Inslee an announcement could come as soon as next Tuesday, June 23.
Ames survived a workforce reduction last year. He had to lose his job as a C-17 crew chief, but he says he’s lucky the Air Force offered him a transition to his current job as a hydraulics technician.
Now he’s just working, waiting, and hoping.
