BATH, Maine — U.S. Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works is laying off an undisclosed number of workers because of a strike that’s in its third week.
The workers who were laid off belong to Machinists’ Local S7, not the production workers who are on strike, Machinists Local S6, according to a memo from Dirk Lesko, the company’s president.
The memo said the production slowdown is causing work to dry up for other workers in the shipyard. “The first functions impacted by this are surveyors and trade inspectors,” he wrote Tuesday.
More than 4,000 production workers went on strike June 22 after overwhelmingly rejecting the company’s final contract offer.
The three-year proposal would’ve given the workers a 3 percent wage increase in each year, but the dispute focuses more on seniority, subcontractors and work rules than on pay and benefits.
The union met Monday with a federal mediator. The company was also expected to meet with the mediator this week. The company had no comment on negotiations, or the layoffs.
The last strike, in 2000, lasted 55 days.
Bath Iron Works is one of the Navy’s largest shipbuilders and a major employer in Maine, with 6,800 workers. The company builds Navy destroyers, the workhorse of the fleet.
