Strikers, NAASCO Will Meet : Labor: Bargaining session today is the first since 2,700 walked off job.

Representatives of striking workers and management at National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. will meet today in their first bargaining session since 2,700 union members walked off the job shortly after midnight Oct. 1.

Federal mediator Jack Bates called the meeting for 1:30 p.m. at an undisclosed downtown hotel. Both sides said Monday that they will attend.

NASSCO management insisted it will not budge on its wage and benefit proposals but will consider modifying “non-economic” parts of its contract proposal, including some union and seniority rights that it wants to curtail.

Union negotiator Peter Zschiesche said the unions would present a “modified” contract proposal but did not offer any specifics.

Members of seven NASSCO unions walked off the job after reaching an impasse with shipyard management over wage, benefit, seniority and union rights issues. The strike marked the fourth straight time that the NASSCO yard has been struck in as many contract renewal years dating back to 1981.

The strike came as NASSC0 was building three Navy AOE-class combat supply ships, the first of which is to be delivered next spring. NASSCO management personnel have since filled in for some strikers, and the first ship, at least, will be delivered on schedule, even if the strike continues, vice president Fred Hallett said.

Up to now, solidarity among striking workers has been strong. “Substantially all union members have honored the picket lines,” NASSCO’s Hallett said. Union members represent about three quarters of NASSCO’s 3,600 employees.

Management at NASSCO, the West Coast’s last shipyard, offered workers a five-year contract with a yearly 25-cent per hour annual raise on top of the current $12.72 average journeyman wage. The management proposal also seeks to limit cost-of-living raises to only the amount of annual inflation over 4%. Union and shop steward rights would also be cut, under NASSCO management’s proposal.

Hallett acknowledged Monday that the economic package offered strikers was “modest” but necessary if the yard is to remain competitive and open. More than a dozen U.S. shipyards have closed over the past decade because of competition from foreign yards, many of which receive state subsidies.

“The company has no new proposals to offer. There’s no new flexibility on the wage and benefit issues,” Hallett said. “We have already offered the highest wages (in U.S. shipyards) and requested work rules that would allow us to remain competitive, which we need to be if we are to win new work.”

The union at first demanded raises of $1 an hour the first year, $1 an hour the second year and $2 the third year. Union negotiators since have said those figures are negotiable if management would accede to safeguarding non-wage issues, including the preservation of union and seniority rights.

“The union’s position is, we are going to negotiate at the table, we aren’t going to negotiate through the media,” union negotiator Zschiesche said. “We are going to make a counter-offer to the company that addresses all the issues of the contract, not just the wages and benefits.”