Strike Called at West’s Last Big Shipyard
About 2,700 workers at the West Coast’s last major shipyard went on strike Thursday as the company warned that it could go out of business if it meets union demands.
Management officials of National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. said they and the company’s seven labor unions were far apart in negotiations and no bargaining sessions were scheduled. The firm has 3,600 workers.
The company cannot stay in business if it meets union demands, chief financial officer Fred Hallett said Thursday.
“We could not win new work, we could not be competitive, if we pay wages higher than we have offered,” Hallett said. “We would price ourselves out of the market and eventually close like the Lockheed yard did in Seattle and like Todd (Shipyards) did in San Pedro.”
The recession and competition from foreign shipyards have led to a number of bankruptcies among U.S. shipyards over the last decade. Only five major U.S. yards are left; National Steel & Shipbuilding is the only one on the West Coast, Hallett said.
Union members said they are frustrated over their wages, which have not increased since 1987, and steadily declining benefits and union rights.
National Steel & Shipbuilding has been employee-owned since 1989 and the work stoppage is unusual in that the workers are striking against their own company. Nevertheless, more than 90% of union members polled Wednesday voted to strike.
Management said the strike would slow but not shut down work at the yard. Three Navy combat support ships are under construction, and about half of the company’s 900 management personnel will pick up tools beginning today to fill in for the striking workers, Hallett said.
The firm offered workers a five-year contract with an average annual raise of 25 cents an hour above the average journeyman wage of $12.72 an hour. Since the company became employee-owned, workers have received an additional yearend profit sharing bonus of 55 cents an hour.
The unions asked for a three-year contract with hourly raises of $1 the first year, $1 the second year and $2 the third year, said Peter Zschiesche, business representative of Machinists Union Local 389, the chief negotiator for the unions. But they will reconsider those demands if non-wage issues such as seniority and health-care costs can be settled, he said.
Zschiesche said some workers are bitter because the average journeyman wage is still not up to the $12.82 in effect before wages were cut $1.40 an hour in 1987, a cost containment measure that the union accepted to save the yard from closing.
