Groton, Conn. – Around 2,500 workers at Electric Boat Shityard in Connecticut plan to attack on May 18 if a tentative contract agreement is not reached with the submarine builder, announced the president of the union during a demonstration on Thursday.
Some 300 members of the union cheered the announcement made by Bill Louis, president of the Marine Draft Association, Auto Workers of America, local 571, The New London Newspaper day reported.
“Officially we are presenting the company in warning that if we do not have an agreement at 11:59 PM, we attack at midnight on May 18,” Louis told the union members, most of whom are essentially responsible for designing the US nuclear submarine fleet of the US Navy.
A message was left for comments with an EB spokesman in Groton.
The imminent strike is produced as a day after the EB parent company, General Dynamics of EB, granted EB, a contract with a value of more than $ 12.4 billion for the construction of two submarines of Virginia class authorized during the last fiscal year. Financing also covers the improved payment of workers.
More than two thirds of the trade union members voted last month to authorize a strike if an agreement could not be reached with a new contract.
The union contract expired on April 4, but leadership agreed to continue negotiating with EB. Higher wages have demanded for four years, the restoration of pension benefits for all members, cost of living adjustments and participation in profits with General Dynamics, the EB parent company, among other changes.
“The clock has been exhausted in corporate greed,” said the president of the UAW, Shawn Fain, to the members during a demonstration last month. “And I will tell you that this is a new UAW where membership is the first and we refuse to point under and settle lower.”
The offer now expelled from EB had included a general salary increase of 23.3% during contract life, plus benefits and a higher retirement package.
The company has acknowledged that it has been “actively preparing a commercial continuity plan in case of a work strike,” added that “it will not hesitate our commitment to continue building submarines, the main priority of national security of the Nation.”
