Bath Marine Draftsmen’s Association (UAW 3999) Prepare for Negotiations with Strike Captain Training

For the past three months, the Bath Marine Draftsmen’s Association (BMDA – UAW 3999) has been preparing members for negotiations with Bath Iron Works - General Dynamics on a new contract. UAW Region 9A and the Maine AFL-CIO have held sessions with BMDA members to do trainings on the negotiations process, strike preparation, internal organizing and communications. Over 50 members showed up for the training in December.

“Right now, we have over 35 committed strike captains that came out of that training,” said BMDA President Trent Vellella. They’re doing an awesome job of internal organizing in their areas and getting out the information and getting people to take actions.”

BMDA will begin formal contract negotiations with the company on Monday, March 2. Vellella said members have made it clear in surveys that their priority is raising wages and improving their health insurance in negotiations. The union is running a robust, organized and intentional program focused on member engagement. For the past couple of months, BMDA has been bargaining memorandum of agreements (MOAs). Out of about 150 MOAs, the negotiating team has about a dozen left to go, including significant items like work-from-home policies. Vellella said many of his members are eligible to work from home two days a week and they would like to retain and expand that flexibility with the company.

“I really want to commend the hard work and commitment of our strike captains,” said Vellella. “The level of engagement that we've seen among the membership has been really encouraging. We're hoping that General Dynamics takes advantage of this opportunity to really be a premier employer in Maine.”

On Feb. 4, MDA UAW Local 571 President Bill Louis shared lessons his union learned from their powerful contract fight with Electric Boat in Connecticut in 2025. During negotiations, Local 571 built a network of over 100 strike captains, who signed up over 2,200 members for picket duty in just 2 days. Even without striking, MDA won a 30 percent wage increase over the life of a new five-year agreement, among other record gains.