Nassco-Union Talks Fail to Break Impasse

After the first bargaining session between striking workers and management at National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. went nowhere Tuesday, management threatened to hire outside workers, and union officials vowed to maintain the 2-week-old strike.

More than 2,700 union workers walked off the job Oct. 1 after Nassco offered workers only a small wage increase over five years and sought to cut cost-of-living increases and benefits, as well as union and seniority rights. Management is offering a $1.25-an-hour raise over five years on top of the $12.72-per-hour journeyman wage.

The unions have cut their raise demand in half, from $4 per hour over three years to $2. But chief union negotiator Peter Zschiesche said Tuesday that workers will not give up on other issues.

Nassco officials said they were “shocked and disappointed” by the contract offer presented by the unions during a four-hour session at a Mission Valley hotel. Company executives said they will now consider “all alternatives to resume full operation,” including the hiring of non-union workers.

Nassco’s threat to resume full operations by hiring outside workers was an effort to “break the spirit of people on the picket line by threatening their jobs,” Zschiesche said.

Nassco officials said the unions’ wage and benefit demands are still too high to keep the yard competitive with other U.S. and foreign shipbuilders. Several U.S. yards have closed over the past decade, and Nassco is the last major yard on the West Coast.

Nassco Vice President Fred Hallett said he would not rule out hiring non-union labor. “We will exclude no alternatives. What we need to do over the next several days is to agree to the approach to resume full operation and then implement it.”

Hallett said it is pointless to negotiate non-economic issues until agreement is reached on wages and benefits.

Union workers are frustrated with a journeyman wage that is less than what workers were earning in 1987. That year, the unions agreed to a $1.40-an-hour pay cut to keep the yard afloat, and current wages have not yet made up the loss.

No new negotiating sessions have been scheduled.