VERONA – Union ironworkers set up a picket Thursday near the Waldo-Hancock Bridge, protesting plans by state transportation officials to hire a nonunion company to work there.

Members of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers Local 496 carried signs near the approaches to the bridge, but did not disrupt traffic or the ongoing work by union ironworkers on the bridge.

Local President John Evans said the protest had been organized in response to the state Department of Transportation’s plans to hire Pittsfield-based Cianbro Corp., a nonunion company, to continue work on the bridge. DOT officials told legislators of the plan Wednesday and formally announced its intention Thursday.

The department plans to hire Cianbro to install supplemental cables on the 72-year-old bridge in order to strengthen it. Once the supplemental cables are in place, DOT will be able to shift about 50 percent of the weight from the existing main cables to the supplemental cables, a move which is expected to increase the safety factor on the bridge.

Evans said Thursday that he was concerned that the union had been “left out of the loop” during the discussions between the department and Cianbro.

“There was no opportunity for a union contractor to come in and pick up the contract,” Evans said. “And there was a union contractor willing to look at the work.”

Local 496 has provided the 40-or-so union workers for Piasecki Steel, the contractor for the $5.3 million project to replace the suspender cables, inspecting and rewrapping the main cables. Until this week, both the department and the union expected that Piasecki would install the supplemental cables as well, which, Evans said, would have increased the number of union workers employed on the bridge.

After DOT developed a schedule that required the supplemental cables be installed by Nov. 1, Piasecki determined that it could not complete the new contract, according to DOT spokesman Greg Nadeau.

Cianbro was the only other bidder on the original job, said Transportation Commissioner David Cole.

“Cianbro has also been working with Piasecki as a subcontractor on fabrication. They also have the engineering resources to work with the Parsons, the bridge engineering design consultant, necessary to complete this fast-track design-build work.”

“It’s very important for us to get this work done before snow flies,” Nadeau said. “Cianbro is familiar with the project and they were willing to commit to that time frame.”