A federal judge last week upheld the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ takeover of its local Bath Iron Works chapter, the largest union at the shipyard with its 3,500 members.
The parent union placed Local S6 in trusteeship in March 2008, suspending several local officers on charges of financial mismanagement and viewing pornography on union-owned computers. The judge’s decision is in response to a lawsuit filed by four of the suspended local officers — Local S6 President Mike Keenan, chief Bath steward Mike Cyr, trustee Cathy London and former Vice President Troy Osgood — two months after Local S6 was placed in trusteeship, according to The Times Record.
While the judge’s decision legitimizes the trusteeship, he referred the suspended officers’ other claims of defamation and infliction of emotional distress to the state courts. Leon Rosenblatt, the lawyer for the suspended officers, told The Times Record that his clients will argue those claims in state court.
