Striking Union Seeks to Block Hiring by Firm

SAN DIEGO —  General Dynamics officials said Friday that they will not recall striking machinists whose jobs have been filled by non-union employees, but the union countered by taking the company and the employment agency that supplied the replacement workers to court.

About 4,000 machinists from the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers struck General Dynamics’ Convair Division on July 19 and have rejected two contract offers from the company. The dispute is over seniority and job security.

General Dynamics spokesman Jack Isabel said the company had hired 300 new workers as of Friday and expects to hire “at a rate of 60 a day over the next several weeks.” Isabel and Convair officials insist that the new workers are permanent replacements for striking machinists.

Union spokesman Tom Roberts said Friday that the union will reject any strike settlement that does not allow all striking workers to return to their jobs. But Isabel said the company’s position on the non-union workers is firm.

“These are permanent replacements,” Isabel said. “People who we have hired will keep their jobs. We have told them that the jobs are theirs forever.”

Roberts and other union officials called the company’s action “a scare tactic,” but they admitted that about 600 strikers have crossed the picket line and returned to work.

On Friday afternoon, union attorneys filed a complaint in San Diego County Superior Court alleging that General Dynamics and the employment agency, United Technical Services, are engaging in illegal strike-breaking.

The complaint alleges that the two companies violated the provisions of the state Business and Professions Code, which prohibits both an employment agency from sending workers to a business where a strike is in progress and a company from hiring the workers.

The union asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order stopping the company from hiring non-union workers supplied by United Technical Services.