Related Articles

Over 1,000 IBEW Members Strike Northrop Grumman’s Mississippi Shipyard

March 13, 2007  

Over 1,000 IBEW unionists and 6,200 metal trades hit the picket lines at Northrop Grumman Ship System’s Ingalls yard in Pascagoula, Mississippi on March 8 after rejecting a second contract offer from the state’s largest employer. The strike is the first at the yard since a three-week walkout in 1999.

(0272) IBEW Fifth District Intl. Vice President Joe Davis visited the picket line of striking members of Local 733 to add solidarity and support. Pictured are, from left, Local 733 member T.O. Ladnier, Vice President Davis, IBEW International Rep. Joe Pledger, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd (a former Local 733 member) and Local 733 Business Manager Jim Couch.

Fifth District International Vice President Joe Davis, and International Representative Joe Pledger joined Business Manager Jim Couch and strikers on the picket lines to help forge the internal unity necessary to win.

“This strike is about Katrina, Katrina, Katrina,” says IBEW Government Director Chico McGill. Some members of Pascagoula IBEW Local 733 are still living in trailers since losing their homes in Hurricane Katrina’s vicious sweep. Prices of everything on the Gulf Coast, from gas to housing, food, health care and building materials are rising.  Workers at the yard, who fabricate destroyers and other naval vessels, credit Northrop Grumman for rendering financial assistance to workers victimized by the hurricane, but they are living on less money than two years ago and are fighting for a contract to keep from sinking deeper in debt. 

The company’s final wage offer was a $1.40 per-hour increase the first year, $.55 per-hour the second year and $.55 per-hour the third year. While this package has been enhanced since the first proposal’s rejection, workers say that it still falls short of what they need to get ahead in the historically lower-paid, right-to-work state.

Wage increases would be eroded by increases in monthly premiums for health care. Active workers would see increases from $144 per month to $194 by the end of the contract.  Premiums for retirees would increase from $175 per month to $225.

“I’ve been in this industry 33 years and seen a few strikes,” says Local 733 Assistant Business Agent Louis Bond.  “If our junior and senior folks stay with each other, we’ll do o.k.,” says Bond. The average age of Local 733’s members at the yard is 41 years old. One-half of the members have 15 years seniority or better; the other half has less than four years.  “There’s a big hole in between,” says Bond, as a result of layoffs in the 1980’s and 1990’s.