BATH — A tentative agreement reached between Bath Iron Works and its largest union would require greater flexibility for workers and allow some items to be built outside the yard, the union’s president said Wednesday of the deal that dials back the company’s original proposals.
The proposed four-year pact includes no pay raises, but does include $2,500 annual bonuses each year, along with modest increases in company pension contributions and some changes in health care deductibles and co-pays, said Jay Wadleigh, president of Machinists Union Local S6.
The proposal compromises on the company’s desire for workers to perform additional tasks outside their specialties and to use subcontractors to produce more items, but “it’s not the carte blanche that they were seeking,” Wadleigh said.
Parts of the contract would go into effect immediately and others would be phased in if Local S6 members approve the contract during a vote Sunday at the Augusta Civic Center.
The current contract for the 3,500 production workers represented by Local S6 doesn’t expire until May 22. But the company initiated the early discussions last month because it wanted to nail down a contract to boost the shipyard’s efficiency to make a competitive bid in the new year on Coast Guard offshore cutters.
The shipyard’s 6,000-member workforce was warned that there would be steep cuts — as many as 1,200 jobs — if the yard fails to land the contract for up to 25 cutters over two decades.
To be competitive, Bath Iron Works President Fred Harris previously told shipbuilders he wanted to have subcontractors build berthing units, lockers and door hatches, all items now built in Bath. He also wanted to update task lists so workers could take on new jobs.
Workers have resisted the changes, saying they can make the items better and, in many cases, more cheaply. They also opposed changes that would take them out of their specialties, saying past efforts to have workers perform multiple tasks made the shipyard less efficient.
Relations deteriorated as members learned of Harris’ ideas. Bath Iron Works, a subsidiary of defense giant General Dynamics, responded by hiring a firm led by former U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt to try to improve labor relations.
Both the union and the company have been told by top Navy officials that future contracts depend on the shipyard’s ability to drive down costs.
At the October christening of the future USS Peralta, Harris was blunt in discussing the shipyard’s need to reduce costs. “We have no other option,” he said. “We must change.”
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