Socialist Action /October 2000
Workers on Strike in Maine Shipyards
By ART LECLAIR
BATH, Maine-At 12:01 a.m., Aug. 28, 4800 members
of International Association of Machinists Local S6 struck Bath Iron Works
(BIW) facilities in Bath, East Brunswick, and Portland, Maine. The strike
resulted when union members rejected the company's contract offer by a margin
of 88 percent.
BIW, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, is the premier
designer and builder of complex, technologically advanced naval warships.
It employs more than 8000 people.
One of the key issues in the dispute is the company's
insistence on "cross-training." Under the proposed agreement workers
would receive training in areas of work currently done by another craft.
For example, if welders are needed to complete
work in one area, and no welders are available, a pipe-fitter would be "loaned"
to do the welding and vice-versa.
Clearly seeing this as an attempt to break down
job classifications to facilitate layoffs, the membership rejected the pact
and walked off their jobs, paralyzing the shipbuilder.
Four days later, a tentative agreement was announced
after members of the draftsmen's union, the shipyard's second-largest with
800 workers, voted to join the striking shipbuilders in a sympathy strike.
The new agreement resulted in a 4-3 split on the
negotiating team. Local S6 President Rock Grenier told reporters, "We
have to see if they [membership] are prepared for a long fight." The
last strike at BIW was a 99-day walkout in 1985.
"We have to make them [membership] understand
we're recommending it based on one week into the strike," stated Tony
Prevost, the Local's Business Representative. "If we go back to the
strike it will take a long time."
The press conference ended with union officials
saying that according to the company, this is the best they could do. "Now
our members will have to weigh in. It's their choice," concluded Prevost.
Questionable circumstances
The membership indeed made their choice on Sept.
4, when they once again rejected the proposal, but by a much lower margin
and under questionable circumstances. To date neither the local union nor
IAM have made any official announcement about the vote, but the strikers
agree that the final tally was 1805-1611.
Several picketers said they were upset about how
the vote was conducted and suspicious about the large number of votes in
favor of the contract offer. "I'm surprised it was so close,"
stated a pipe-fitter with almost 20 years on the job, who asked to remain
anonymous. "At the first vote, we signed our names, showed our badges,
and they marked our hand. On Sunday [Sept. 4], anyone could have gone in
there."
People were asked what their badge numbers were,
but they did not have to be produced.
Walking the picket line outside the shipyard, Larry
Stegna, an electrician at BIW for 21 years voiced his displeasure with the
voting process. "Anybody could have gotten a ballot and anybody could
have voted," said Stegna. "I am behind my union 100 percent, but
the lack of professionalism of this vote left a bad taste in my mouth."
Other picketers agreed.
"People have made some complaints in regard
to that," according to Local S6 President Grenier. He said the union
is reviewing the ballots and "double checking to reiterate that everything
was done right." However, Grenier could not explain why members did
not have to show their BIW badges prior to voting.
Needless to say, emotions were high as the voting
got under way. After the secret ballots were collected and the outcome announced,
workers emerged from the Augusta Civic Center with fists in the air, chanting,
"strike, strike, strike."
Many threw their copies of the rejected agreement
into a pile and stated a bonfire. Police had to clear out the strikers so
the fire department could extinguish the blaze.
Need for union solidarity
What is needed most at a time like this is union
solidarity. Leaders of the Bath Marine Draftsmen's Association, a UAW affiliate
that staged a sympathy strike prior to the tentative agreement, offered
to return to the picket line with the machinists.
Apparently, they asked Local S6 officials if the
draftsmen, whose contract expires early next year, were forced to strike
at that time, would the striking shipbuilders do the same for them.
According to sources close to the scene, the request
was answered with silence. After being rejected, some of the draftsmen voiced
interest in knowing why IAM Local S7, which represents planners and "liaisons"
at the shipyard, weren't honoring the picket lines.
Is this type of "solidarity" helpful
in winning a strike? Obviously not. In a healthy, vibrant labor movement,
the question should never even have to be asked.
Part and parcel of today's misguided labor movement
is the practice of not honoring another's picket line. The two-gate system,
institutionalized by the building trades, is a perfect example.
Under this device, if one union, say iron workers,
have a dispute with a contractor and walk off the job, setting up a picket
line, all the other crafts have to do is use a designated "second gate,"
at which the iron workers, by agreement, don't picket. Therefore, union
workers from the other crafts aren't "penalized" because of a
dispute that "doesn't involve them." No wonder we're in so much
trouble!
In 1981, a dispute of historic proportions took
place in the United States. Members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers
Organization (PATCO), went on strike over safety and health issues at the
nation's airports and regional air traffic control centers. But their picket
lines were ignored by labor unions, including those in the airlines industry.
Some did so out of spite, because PATCO had endorsed
Ronald Reagan in his presidential campaign.
However, years later in a conversation the author
had with a friend who was a local official with the controllers' union at
Boston's Logan Airport, he revealed that PATCO, as a matter of policy, did
not even approach the airline unions for solidarity. PATCO neglected to
do so out of concern that in the future, when one of them went out on strike,
they would expect PATCO members to support them on the picket line. Solidarity
forever!
Why the movement is confused
For years now union members in this country have
been told that "strikes don't work any more." Of course they don't.
When "organized" in the fashion of the examples above, how could
they? Instead, union "leaders" deliver us into the hands of politicians
and other reptiles as part of the search for the messiah.
This is what is now happening in Bath. Less than
two weeks into the strike, some picketers, leery of a sell-out by the IAM,
were already talking about a "decert" (decertification vote) down
the road. There was talk of resurrecting the campaign for an independent
union, which failed only a few years ago.
At Amtrak, where I work, hardly a day goes by without
the same kind of talk. Everywhere, it seems, union members are fed up with
the lack of leadership, if not out and out treachery of the trade-union
bureaucracy. And like everywhere else, workers are looking for an easy fix
to the problem. But there is no easy fix.
If there is one word that aptly describes today's
labor movement, "confused" would be my choice. With the constant
bombardment by the bosses and the government, combined with sermons ad nauseam
from union skates that we can't fight our own battles, why should it be
any different?
There is an answer to solve this debacle, but its
not an easy one.
Since the AFL-CIO bureaucrats have become partners
with the capitalist class, they must be removed along with the bosses. The
only answer is the rising up of the working class to throw the bums out.
Until that time approaches, workers in the United States will be subjected
to one snake oil salesman after another.
On Sept. 20, Local S6 and BIW returned to the negotiating
table at the request of a federal mediator. We urge all our readers in New
England to try to visit the shipyard picket line. They deserve and appreciate
support.
Socialist Action /October 2000 |