Over 600 Bath Iron Works Designers and Technicians Strike Over Wages

More than 600 employees at Bath Iron Works walked off the job Monday after the latest round of contract negotiations with the shipyard broke down. The workers are members of the Bath Marine Draftsmen's Association, affiliated with the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, commonly known as the UAW. Bath Iron Works and the BMDA failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement after weeks of negotiations, pushing the dispute to a strike as the union's prior contract expired at midnight Sunday, March 22.

The contradiction at the center of the dispute is hard to miss: six weeks before the walkout, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood inside the same shipyard and urged workers to build warships as fast as they can. Union President Trent Vellella expressed disappointment in the company's stance, referencing that visit and saying, "We had hoped the company took to heart the statements made by Secretary Hegseth here at GD BIW on February 9th because our membership certainly did." Hegseth's February 9 stop was part of what he called his "Arsenal of Freedom tour," a call to revitalize American defense manufacturing. Some of those workers he encouraged are now on strike.

Approximately 76% of BMDA membership voted over the weekend to reject the company's contract offer because they didn't feel heard by their employer, Vellella said. The union said in a statement that the shipyard's offer does not address the members' concerns about wages, insurance coverage and retirement income security. Vellella said, "General Dynamics continues to make record profits off our labor and gives away billions every year through stock buybacks and dividends while many of our members live paycheck to paycheck."

Bath Iron Works spokesperson David Hench said the company's proposal includes "historic annual wage increases" of 10.1% in the first year followed by 4% in each of the following three years. The total compounded wage growth over the four-year contract amounts to 23.8 percent. BIW also said the offer would keep health insurance rates it described as significantly below market, while preserving work-from-home options, flexible workweek arrangements, and vacation-purchase opportunities. The union rejected that framing entirely. "Inflation has taken over our wages incredibly fast," said union officer Mark Andrew, an 18-year veteran of the role. "Our folks, especially young folks with families, they can't buy houses, they can't afford rent." Those concerns led to more than 75% of union members voting down the company's latest contract offer, triggering the strike.

"The company is continuing to negotiate in good faith with the BMDA to explore opportunities to better align company and union objectives," Hench said in an emailed statement. The company plans for business operations to continue during the strike through the use of salaried personnel, subcontractors and other employees who elect to come to work.

BMDA members at Bath Iron Works work as designers, nondestructive test technicians, technical clerks, laboratory technicians and associate engineers. The union represents 627 workers at the historic shipyard, which has built naval ships in Bath for more than a century. The shipyard's total workforce is about 6,800 people, making the striking contingent roughly one-tenth of all employees on site. It is also the first strike at the yard in six years.

Bath Iron Works is a major shipbuilder for the Navy and was awarded a multiyear contract to build several Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in 2023. The Arleigh Burke is a guided missile destroyer that Navy officials have described as the "backbone of the Navy's surface fleet." The Navy exercised an option last year to add an additional destroyer to the contract. No source has confirmed whether the walkout will delay any specific ship schedules; the company maintains it can sustain operations.

Members picketed outside the shipyard Monday in cold and drizzly weather and said they would continue picketing around the clock until they ratified a new contract. The strike of more than 600 workers would also extend beyond Bath Iron Works to other General Dynamics locations across the world. The strike unfolds as the U.S. intensifies its military operations related to Iran, adding urgency to any disruption at one of the Navy's most consequential shipbuilding facilities.