"And then one day — it happened. It really, truly happened."
The A-76 federal privatization program had visited Plum Island two times since its inception in 1980. The rules stated the government had to step aside when the private sector could perform the government's nonprofes-sional tasks, provided no "overriding factors" required the government to keep those functions federalized. On both previous occasions, Dr. Callis invoked the "overriding factors" exception and staved off privatization, arguing that Plum Island functions were far too sensitive to be contracted out. Placing two high-hazard biological containment laboratories in the hands of a private company would shift the emphasis from safety to profits. And it would kill employee morale. Why take the chance? Plum Island remained under federal control. Until Dr. Breeze arrived.
In 1988, a year after Breeze took control, a performance work statement (PWS) was prepared. This was essentially a chart of all the tasks that private contractors (and the government's own "in house" team) would bid on. From the start, there were signs that the PWS was prepared incorrectly. In an internal memorandum, the government review panel noted "many misleading statements concerning the real situation with underground storage tanks, existing fuel spills, the chemical management program…etc." The panel said the PWS had been "sugarcoated" and charged it did "not reflect the reality of the true pressing problems" at Plum Island. It seemed like the PWS was being rigged to lure an unsuspecting outside contractor into snatching the bid.
"It was a political decision to do it," Dr. Breeze says today of the Plum Island privatization. "It had nothing to do with me or anybody else in USDA — that's just the way it is." But at the time, responding to the review panel, Dr. Breeze exploded. "There are no misleading statements," he wrote. Instead, the panel had "misunderstood several issues… There are no obvious deficiencies we know of….If [the review panel] feels this PWS is 'sugarcoated,' I am very willing to make their specific concerns known." Definitive words from someone who supposedly had nothing to do with it.
On Thursday morning, February 21, 1991, four sealed envelopes were opened in Washington. Burns & Roe Services Corporation of New Jersey was awarded the five-year Plum Island contract, with the lowest and best bid: $16.3 million. The government's in-house team had bid $23.7 million on the same exact PWS. The private contractor had underbid the in-house bid by $7.4 million — more than 30 percent lower. The disparity meant one of two things. Either the private contractor grossly underestimated the costs of the Plum Island project, or the in-house government team engaged in the unfathomable: it tanked its own bid.
Breeze explains his point of view. "There is no secret to this. There's no way you can shuffle cards around, if you are giving people decent jobs with full medical benefits and all the other benefits that accrue with having a job with the federal government. You cannot compete with people that are being paid minimum wage, with minimal benefits — it's not possible. It's actually not something I agree with. I don't think it's the right thing to do by any means. But that's the process."
Breeze says the two bids during the Callis regime beat the private bids because they combined tasks. Those bids said: "Firefighters would act as janitors, and take away the garbage and clean the toilets and mop the rest rooms…theboat crew will maintain motor vehicles, and et cetera. And if that would have been clear up front, that firefighters weren't going to clean rest rooms, there would have been janitors and the government would have lost." John Boyle, who admits he was "heavily involved" in the privatization process, said, "You have to be really, really creative to have the government submit the winning bid. We put together a good bid — a competitive contract. To preserve it, [the union] had to give something up, and they didn't want to give up some jobs. I was quite frankly afraid we were going to win it. I didn't want to win it."
Most Americans instantly recall exactly where they were and what they were doing at the moment they heard President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, or that the space shuttle Challenger had exploded. For Plum Islanders, May 3, 1991, was one of those days.
John Boyle recalls the moment he heard Plum Island would be privatized for the first time in its history. "I was sitting in my office, staring out on the lawn, out on Gardiner's Bay, just daydreaming for a few moments, when Ernie [Escarcega, Breeze's facilities manager] calls me and says, 'A-76 is coming in!' And I thought, 'Well, thank God.' I personally considered it a blessing… " Walking out of his office, Boyle saw men wringing their hands and women crying in the hallways. "Crestfallen is way too mild a word. For these people, it was like getting news your son was killed in a car crash. I am not overstating it, either." Dr. Breeze also remembers the scene. "Chaos — it was the first time any of the employees had an inkling they might really lose their jobs."
Seizing the moment, the very next morning Burns & Roe executives called an all-hands 8:00 a.m. meeting in the old Army chapel. Exhausted, Stanley Mickaliger had just finished an eight-hour graveyard shift in Lab 257 and trudged over to the chapel. "When I got to the meeting hall, they were already introducing each other, giving all these speeches — all these men with suntan lotion on all over, you know? It clearly wasn't the government anymore. They were these big contractor types." As the crowd slowly filed in, they were handed sealed envelopes holding the documents that determined the fate of their careers. Mickaliger walked over to an official-looking woman for guidance. She told him they were not taking questions, not now—"You have to catch the ten a.m. boat because we're not going to be paying overtime anymore. You can look at your letter on the boat."
Shunted onto the ferry, Mickaliger and the others tore open their letters. "It had all this information, on a bunch of papers, but I didn't understand a lot of it." One thing was clear, though — he'd been fired. And the severance package was nil. The fifteen-year-veteran's remaining choices were a bit limited. "I could have went to Calverton [National Cemetery, a nearby federal facility with openings], but that wasn't my cup of tea. See, I had been a master plumber for forty years. Now I'm going to dig graves and bury people? My wife and I lost our health insurance at age sixty — I had to pay 102 percent of the cost. The letter said if I retired, I got only 40 percent of the eligible Social Security benefit I paid into all those years. I remember complaining to them, saying, 'Hey, I know guys here have thirty years in. But I've put in a good fifteen years — do you think you can help me?' They gave me COBRA for six months."[38]
The days of "respecting personal dignity… recognizing work achieve-ment…providing work security" were over. So was the old feeling that working on Plum Island was like being part of an extended family, that it was a career. For the roughly one hundred support workers left behind (which would decrease to seventy-five by 1995), employment at the Plum Island exotic germ laboratory would now simply be a job. And thereafter it would have all the dedication to mission, attention to detail, pride in workmanship, and camaraderie that accompanied a job.
A newspaper editorial published at the time captured the moment: "How would you feel if you worked for somebody for 15 years and a new boss came in and told you that you were losing your seniority and most of your benefits? What's more, you will be paid half of what you were paid to do the same job and your annual vacation days will be reduced from 25 to zero in the first year." And that was only if the contractor kept your posi-tion—"Remember," says one employee, "those that were allowed to stay were offered 'a' job, not 'your' job." And those were the lucky ones. A deeper sympathy was reserved for the seventy-five or so that were fired or pushed off the island into the bitter seas of early retirement. The negative effects on the community of the privatization layoffs at Plum Island, the east end's largest employer, were real.[39]
38
When the contractor came in, a Burns & Roe corporate vice president had big news for his new charges. "All employees will receive, in addition to their base salaries, $2.07 per hour. And they can do whatever they want with it." Of course, nearly all were forced to apply the extra dollars to the health insurance premiums that tripled, just as their annual salaries plummeted.
39
In time, east end engineers and skilled tradesmen found diminished opportunities, serving thousands of wealthy summer colonists on the North Fork and in the Hamptons in the fine arts of pool cleaning, tennis court maintenance, landscaping, and golf course maintenance. A few dug graves at Calverton National Cemetery.