BIW union keeps trusteeship

PORTLAND – The Machinists union decided to keep a trustee in charge of the largest union at Bath Iron Works after an investigation that substantiated claims of fiscal mismanagement and computer porn, International President Thomas Buffenbarger told Local S6 members.

A union committee concluded there’s sufficient evidence to support charges of shoddy accounting and nearly $27,000 in missing union merchandise, widespread viewing of pornography on union computers, and failure to deal with grievances in a timely manner, he wrote.

“The evidence was more than sufficient to continue the trusteeship,” Buffenbarger wrote in a letter mailed this week to all 3,200 Local S6 members.

Local S6 was placed in trusteeship in March and local officials, including President Mike Keenan, were suspended during the investigation.

Buffenbarger’s decision, released Wednesday, dealt only with the issue of whether the union would remain in receivership or revert to the control of locally elected leaders, said John Carr, a Machinists spokesman. The issue of the suspended leaders remains unresolved.

“This was about whether or not the trusteeship was warranted and whether conditions that were alleged actually existed,” Carr said Wednesday.

There were no specific findings regarding guilt and any member of Local S6 can appeal the decision to the union’s executive council, Carr said.

The local union has been in turmoil ever since the allegations first surfaced. Many of the union members showed up for a union hearing wearing orange stickers on their hard hats reading, “We Believe in Democracy … Elected not Selected.”

Stoney Dionne, a former Local S6 president, said most rank-and-file members are frustrated over how the matter was handled by the international union, which locked down the local union hall on the day of an election in which Keenan won another term.

Days later, 10 officials were suspended, but all except for three have been reinstated. Keenan is one of the three still suspended.

“I think it was an underhanded move that shouldn’t have happened,” Dionne said. If there was a problem, he said, the international union should have worked with the president to fix the problems rather than sweeping in and removing the president and other officers.

Keenan and several other Local S6 leaders have sued the parent Machinists Union, accusing it of carrying out a vendetta against local officers.

“We’re ready to go to court. We’ve got our stuff together. We’re anxious to get this before an unbiased jury,” Keenan said Wednesday.

In his letter, Buffenbarger said new processes have been put into place to handle grievances, eliminate backroom deals with management and ensure an accurate accounting for hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost-time payments made to workers on union business.

Software has been installed to prevent misuse of union computers, Buffenbarger added.

There was no word on a timetable for restoring the union to local control, but federal labor law limits the trusteeship to 18 months.

“My goal is to return Local Lodge S6 to the control of locally elected representatives just as soon as operations of the local lodge permit and it is clear that your interests are fully protected,” Buffenbarger wrote.