Workers Strike Nuclear-Submarine Maker

More than 10,000 workers went on strike Friday against Electric Boat, maker of the Navy’s nuclear submarines and the largest employer in the area, and no new contract talks were scheduled.

The members of unions belonging to the Metal Trades Council walked off their jobs at midnight after voting 4,921 to 3,140 to reject the company’s offer to pay them lump-sum bonuses in each of the next three years instead of higher wages.

Negotiations with the union council, which represents more than half of Electric Boat’s 18,000 workers, broke down about a half-hour before the old three-year contract expired at midnight Thursday.

State Labor Commissioner Betty L. Tianti said state mediators had been in touch with both sides, but neither side seemed interested in meeting.

About 300 workers, some chanting obscenities, picketed outside company gates Friday morning. About 80 state and local police officers stood by. The pickets dwindled to about 50 by mid-afternoon.

Police reported arrests of two men, one accused of setting off fireworks and the other accused of driving his car through police barricades in front of the plant.

Electric Boat, a division of General Dynamics Corp., is one of two shipyards making nuclear submarines for the Navy and the only manufacturer of giant subs capable of carrying the Trident missile.