Some supervisors hate my writing. They feel criticisms of “the company” and “management” put them under assault. These are impersonal terms, however. I criticize the institution, not its participants. “Consent of the governed” is a cornerstone of American political thinking. The idea is that government has authority because we, the people, allow it. The democratic process gives voice to our consent every election cycle. Local S6 follows this model. Under our bylaws, any member can run for shop steward of their trade. Shop stewards elect committees, appoint general stewards, and influence officer elections. Industrial unionism builds on this American ideal. Not only do we model our own organization on American democracy. We demand the companies we work for ask for “consent of the managed.” Like most companies, Bath Iron Works’ selection process for managers is entirely top-down. General Dynamics corporate appointed Charles Krugh to be BIW’s President. He rehired Dave Clark to be Vice President of Operations. Dave Clark hires superintendents of the trades. And the superintendents hire the front line supervisors that manage the members of Local S6 day to day. The problem isn’t Charles Krugh or Dave Clark, though, it’s who chooses them.

Protestors from several left-wing organizations demonstrated outside Bath Iron Works (BIW) on Friday, December 8:

• Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights

• Students for Justice in Palestine

• The Communist Maine Party for Socialism & Liberation (Maine PSL)

• Portland CONFRONT

The Maine Natural GuardThese different groups represented diverse political ideologies, from anarchism to pacifism, communism to socialism, but they all came together to call on BIW’s largest union, Local S6, to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza under a “pro-worker anti-war” platform. The protestors targeted the 3:30 shift change, demonstrating from approximately 2:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon. Some protestors distributed a flier to grumpy workers navigating around the street closure. “The APWU, UAW, UE, multiple healthcare unions, and the Chicago Teachers Union have all called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza,” it read, “We invite members of IAM Local S6… to stand with us!”

I wrote an article about guns several months ago. I felt compelled to revisit this topic in the aftermath of the October 25 Lewiston shootings. For two days, nobody knew what happened to the shooter. Businesses across the state shuttered as Androscoggin and north Sagadahoc Counties sheltered in place. Stewards and supervisors fielded calls from anxious mechanics, but they were uncertain themselves. Tensions were high, yet Bath Iron Works (BIW) remained open. Weeks later, the shootings still feel too raw to make political. I don't want to make clichéd gun control arguments. Instead, I want to emphasize the significance of BIW's decision to remain open. Management’s decision highlights a flaw in our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Moreover, it exposes the same flaw in society at large: we rely too much on corporate goodwill to get through our lives.

We talk a lot about “skilled” and “unskilled” labor in the shipbuilding industry. For a long time, union contracts made a distinction between skilled and unskilled classifications. Take the 1970 agreement between Bath Iron Works and IUMSWA Local 6 for instance. It classified Toolmakers (T8) as first-class “skilled” labor but janitors (J4) and “janitresses” (J6) as “unskilled.” T8s earned $4.06 per hour while J4s earned $3.11. More poignantly, women working as J6s earned $3.02 an hour, less than men doing the same type of work.

The 1973 agreement eliminated this antiquated distinction, but it did not end the culture that encouraged it in the first place. Today, "unskilled" General Laborers (L40) bear the brunt of union antagonism. Language like “skill” is still anything but neutral. "Skill" justifies class divisions. Make no mistake, skill is an artificial construct the company uses to distract us. It makes no logical sense without the broader historical and cultural context in which we use it. This is a context that needs to change so we can fight for what matters. Our identities are at stake, inside the shipyard and out.

On August 22, I sent a letter to Representative Jared Golden. As of posting my letter here, I have not received a response from Golden or his office. Golden posted his “Thoughts on Reactions to [His] Student Loan Forgiveness Statement” on August 29. His thoughts addressed many of my concerns, so I have posted his write-up in his entirety as though it were a response to my letter. I added emphasis and numbered parts of Golden’s write-up. Following this, I penned my own thoughts before concluding Golden is no longer working class.

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” This is the Law of the Hammer according to Abraham Maslow, the psychologist famous for his hierarchy of needs. Maslow penned this maxim in 1966, and in 1977, science fiction authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle sensationalized it in the apocalypse novel Lucifer's Hammer. The inciting, apocalyptic event is Maslow’s Hammer, a comet on a collision course with Earth, heralding a great reset and society's return to Niven and Pournelle’s paleoconservative principles. The hammer strike precipitates the story’s major conflict, a battle for civilization between the heroic (and white) libertarian scientists and a villainous gang of black cannibals. Lucifer’s Hammer supposes that societies can only succeed one way, the white libertarian scientist's way. When the comet comes, our society better be set up to favor their interests, or civilization as we know it will end. Niven and Pournelle prove this moral by spinning a Space Whale Aesop on the false premise that white men are the most intelligent people on Earth. A sci-fi classic!