FCNL produces economic conversion fact sheet, lists St. Louis as successful example

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) has developed a new fact sheet that presents an alternative for defense-dependent communities worried about job loss from Pentagon cuts. The hand out explains that with some foresight and planning, economic conversion is not only possible, but has been successful in the past.

Among the examples listed are St. Louis, MO. Then known as the St. Louis Economic Conversion Project, this organization was able to help re-employ 75 percent of McDonnell Douglass employees who were laid off.

In 1989, 159,000 people in St. Louis, Missouri — one out of every seven workers — were employed by defense contractors. McDonnell Douglass Corporation (now, Boeing) had 42,000 employees. Just eight years later, with the Cold War ended, only 99,000 workers were employed in St. Louis by defense-related firms.

The OEA provided planning and organizational funding to the St. Louis Defense Adjustment program to support a coordinated and comprehensive regional response to the downsizing. As a result of this planning, by 1994, 75 percent of all workers laid off earlier were re-employed and two-thirds of those workers earned as much or more
money than they did while working at their previous job, including 10 percent that owned their own businesses.

To learn more about economic conversion, be sure to check out the fact sheet here.