Businesses to Levin: Fight for our tanks

Businesses to Levin: Fight for our tanks
23 May 2011

Once again, defense contractor General Dynamics and dozens of area industrial suppliers are trying to convince Congress not to pull the plug on the U.S. Army’s Abrams tank program. At a town hall meeting on Friday held at a Roseville factory, the suppliers pleaded with U.S. Rep. Sander Levin to convince more members of Congress that a three-year shutdown proposed by the Pentagon would be disastrous.
“Sure, this affects all of us in this room. But what about that poor grunt who needs a part for his tank in Afghanistan?” said Bob Easterbrook, who served on an Army tank crew during the Cold War and now serves as president of East-Lind Heat Treat Inc. in Madison Heights.
General Dynamics Land Systems, headquartered in Sterling Heights and the main contractor on the tank program, has warned that a halt in production will jeopardize tens of thousands of jobs at more than 560 businesses across the country. Michigan would be affected far more than any other state.
In Michigan, the move to idle the program from 2013-17 could affect jobs at more than 200 Michigan defense industry suppliers. The cost-cutting plan sparked Levin to initiate a campaign that led to a bipartisan letter of protest from 136 House members to Army Secretary John McHugh.
The manufacturers on hand for the town hall meeting said that a lengthy pause would cause such a permanent loss of workers and skills — essentially a Michigan brain drain — that an extraordinarily difficult re-start would be required in the future. In the interim, the Army could face problems supplying replacement parts for tanks deployed overseas in combat areas. (Source: Macomb Daily)


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