The Nation : Union Rejects Pay Freeze

The union representing 4,500 shipbuilders at Bath Iron Works in Maine voted overwhelmingly to reject the company’s latest contract proposal for a three-year wage freeze. Union leaders said picket lines would go up at the company’s shipyards in Bath, Brunswick and Portland at midnight. Bath has a $322-million Navy contract to build the first of a class of guided-missile destroyers that may be the Navy’s last major shipbuilding project of the century. Company spokesman Jim McGregor said no new negotiations are scheduled.