Seaport Workers Speak Out on Unionization

 employees have confirmed that they are unionizing.

AFT Connecticut Communications Coordinator and Union spokesman Eric Excell Bailey said the union will provide background on the process including the timeline of the vote and to unionize at a meeting with organizers and employees next week. In the meantime, two employees have opted to talk about unionizing now.

“I’ve worked at the Museum in the shipyard for 30-something years.  I’ve worked on all kinds of ships and boats and I love the work we are doing now.  I know that by joining together (with the union) we can make the Seaport an even better place for this community," Seaport worker Dean Seder said in an email. 

And Seaport museum exhibit interpreter and educator Liz Kading said "our union will give us a voice in how the Seaport goes forward.”

 “All sorts of different people work at the Seaport from shipyard workers to historical interpreters.  We have been coming together over the last few months and rediscovering why the seaport is such a special place.  It’s because of the people," Kading said. 

The AFT-CT represents some 28,000 elementary, secondary and higher education professionals, healthcare workers, municipal and state government workers in Connecticut.

Seaport spokesman Dan McFadden said he would have no comment on “anything personnel” and he declined to confirm management knowledge of worker dissatisfaction or union organizing.

“We’re just not going to discuss personnel,” McFadden said.

Employees Patch spoke with said they were concerned about being fired if they spoke up.

“Jobs could be on the line if our names were used,” one said.

And a union official said that while illegal, retribution, including firings, is common: ”We’ve seen this time and time again.”

When asked why employees were looking to unionize one said: “It’s time, past time. Especially when you have your hours cut and cut from under you, it’s too much.”

Another staff member who educates visitors on maritime history and exhibits said “the majority [of Seaport staff] are on board." A shipbuilder told Patch, “The whole Seaport is trying to unionize.”

And as workers are preparing to unionize, word of a trip to Italy by senior level management had many shaking their heads.

According to McFadden, Seaport President Stephen C. White and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Richard R. Vietor are in Italy until late next week on a fundraising trip. McFadden originally said the men were there for the annual International Congress of Maritime Museums’ Conference, later clarifying he had misunderstood White’s schedule. He said the fundraising trip they are on “is sponsored and organized by the Museum’s International Council.”

“The purpose is to cultivate support from donors with an interest in maritime heritage, while at the same time developing new relationships with similar institutions in other countries,” McFadden wrote in an email to Patch, adding White and Vietor are “visiting and meeting with the staffs of numerous maritime and history museums and sites in Venice and Florence.”

Museo Storico Navale (The Naval Museum and Arsenal) is located in Venice and the Galata Museum of the Sea is located in Genoa, approximately 500 kilometers from Venice.

Lack of winter attendance shuttered the Mystic Seaport for several weeks this winter, but after re-opening in .

According to the 2010-2011 annual report, the Seaport saw more than $6.6 million in gifts and bequests.

Among other is its , its new business model study, enhanced marketing and “pursuing collaborations.”