The Bath Marine Draftsmen’s Association strike at Bath Iron Works stretched through its fourth day Thursday as the union and General Dynamics tried to hammer out a deal.
Negotiations stretched well into Thursday evening without an agreement, with increased health care costs being one of the major sticking points.
In negotiations this week, Bath Iron Works proposed a four-year contract with annual wage increases of 10.5% in the first year and three more 5% increases each year, according to a BIW spokesperson. At the end of four years, a BMDA employee could earn more than $95,000 annually.
However, the rising costs of benefits like health insurance would cause union members to lose money, strike captain Maggie Luchetti said while on the picket line Thursday.
The contract proposal between BIW and BMDA, which represents 627 shipyard employees who primarily work on ship designs, maintains three health care plans, with the company limiting premium growth to 5.75%, or an average of $2.05 per week. The health care benefits proposed also keep flexible work schedules, with the ability to work from home and options to purchase additional vacation time.
Union President Trent Vellella and BIW officials were unavailable for comment because they were in negotiations.
“Our membership and our union are going to fight as much as we possibly can, and if we have to keep going longer, we will,” Luchetti said.
Union members are protesting for varied reasons, but with the same goal — getting back to work, Luchetti said.
The national average pay for a designer is $36 per hour, and an entry-level designer at BIW starts at $22.40 per hour, said BIW electrical designer and instructor Katy Gatchell. Apprentice designers are also picketing and putting a hold on training, including the expanded community college education program.
“We want to get back to work, but we can’t go back to work if we are constantly undervalued,” Gatchell said.
A prolonged dispute over contract details could signal challenges ahead for other unions at the shipyard. Local S6, a much larger union of around 4,300 employees responsible for building destroyers for the U.S. Navy, will enter its own contract negotiations later this spring.
Local S6 went on strike for nine weeks in 2020, before agreeing to a 3-year contract August of that year.
While the focus remains on the picket lines at the Washington Street gates, a parallel timeline is unfolding in the race for the Maine House of Representatives. Public records show Vellella officially filed his candidacy for the District 49 House seat on March 13, just eight days before BMDA members overwhelmingly rejected the company’s contract proposal, setting the stage for the work stoppage that began on March 23.
Vellella enters the race as the sole Democratic candidate for the seat being vacated by term-limited Rep. Allison Hepler. He is currently positioned to face the winner of a Republican primary between Suzanne Andresen and Nicolas Hamlin, both of whom are vying for the chance to represent the left-leaning district covering Bath, West Bath and Woolwich.
On conservative-leaning social media platforms, some local critics have pointed to this rapid succession of events to suggest that Vellella is leveraging the high-profile strike to amplify his name recognition among voters ahead of the June primary, but officials at the Maine AFL-CIO, a federation of union organizations, say such claims are ludicrous.
Asked Thursday about the questions surrounding the timing of the strike and his decision to launch a political campaign, Vellella dodged the insinuations.
“The BMDA Negotiating Committee is laser focused on reaching an agreement with GDBIW that would return over 600 dedicated shipbuilding professionals, both in Maine and across the country, back to their jobs supporting the United States Navy as soon as possible,” he said in an email.
Staff Writer Penny Overton contributed to this story.