BATH — A new overseer has been appointed to Bath Iron Works’ largest union.
Tony Blevins has replaced former Local S6 machinist union President Jay Wadleigh, who is now at the District 4 office in Lisbon. Wadleigh had been serving in that post since March.
“Due to other assignments and workloads there has been an internal supervisor change,” said John Carr, spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “Preference is to assign a representative that isn’t directly associated to the members of the respective local or district lodge.”
The change comes four months after in-fighting picked up at the union, prompted charges and finger-pointing among leadership.
In March, members of the executive board wrote the president of the IAMAW, Robert Martinez Jr., asking for intervention.
Soon after Wadleigh started as overseer, Local S6 President Michael Keenan filed charges against two union officers with the IAMAW Grand Lodge. Among the charges Keenan made against Secretary/Treasurer Jason Perry and Chief Steward Ray Gauthier were incompetence, negligence and insubordination.
Perry and Gauthier characterized Keenan’s actions as politically motivated. The two called it retribution after they turned to the national organization for help dealing with Keenan, whom they said did not comply with direction from the national organization regarding internal operations.
After Keenan filed those charges, 100 union members voted no confidence in his leadership. Keenan discounted the vote, arguing that there were more than 3,500 union members and that he had heavy support. He has kept his post, which he’s held throughout the IAMAW supervisory period. Gauthier characterized Keenan as the fly in the ointment at a time when the union is poised to do a lot of good.
Speaking to The Times Record at the time, Keenan said, “I was voted in by over 1,300 members who wanted me to go over there and clean up the union. I was overwhelmingly put into office to protect them, their rights and their money.”
Perry and Gauthier both pointed to 2008, when Keenan previously served as president of Local S6. Officials with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers removed him and other leadership from office for financial impropriety and downloading pornography on work computers; claims that Keenan has denied. He was barred from running for union office for four years following his removal.
Calls to local union officials weren’t returned Tuesday.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
