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BIW Says Union Is Violating National Labor Relations Act

Willis Ryder Arnold
/
Maine Public File
The union has been on strike since June 21.

Bath Iron Works says it has filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against Local S6 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which has been on strike since June 21.

In a press release, the company alleges that the union is violating the National Labor Relations Act by threatening union members who choose to cross the picket line to return to work.

On its website Local S6 has posted an alert warning that anyone who chooses to return will be fined after the strike is over. It also suggested they should be drowned or hung. BIW refutes the accusations of threatened violence, saying that the quote in question is from a piece of prose by Jack London. It compares those who cross the picket line with Biblical figure Judas Iscariot.

In its statement, BIW says that under the National Labor Relations Act, employees who choose come back to work have the right to do so without being harassed or threatened with violence, and that those who resign their union membership prior to crossing the picket line cannot be fined or forced to pay union dues, something the union disputes.

The Associated Press says the number of striking workers who have crossed picket lines is believed to be about a dozen.

Ed is a Maine native who spent his early childhood in Livermore Falls before moving to Farmington. He graduated from Mount Blue High School in 1970 before going to the University of Maine at Orono where he received his BA in speech in 1974 with a broadcast concentration. It was during that time that he first became involved with public broadcasting. He served as an intern for what was then called MPBN TV and also did volunteer work for MPBN Radio.