WESTBROOK (AP) – Sappi Fine Paper is advertising for replacement workers following a strike authorization vote at four mills, including two in Maine.

In Westbrook, members of Local 1069 of the United Steelworkers joined their counterparts at a mill in Michigan in voting last week to authorize a strike. Within a couple of days, Sappi was advertising for their potential replacements.

“We are now pursuing all lawful means to operate and protect and supply our customers. And this includes hiring permanent replacements for economic strikers,” said Brooke Carey, a Sappi spokeswoman. “We have to continue operating.”

The company is also training salaried employees in other capacities and has brought in additional security as a precaution, Carey said.

Brian Wade, president of Local 1069, which represents 172 workers, said he didn’t expect many people to apply for the jobs, noting that the positions are for shift work and would require crossing a picket line.

He accused Sappi of placing the ads simply to make union workers nervous. “We’re not going to overreact,” he said.

Although Westbrook workers authorized the strike, those at Sappi’s mill in Skowhegan did not. The mill in Skowhegan employs about 900 people, while the one in Westbrook has about 340 workers, according to Sappi.

Workers at the Sappi mill in Muskegon, Mich., also voted to authorize a strike but workers in Cloquet, Minn., declined to do so.

The strike vote doesn’t mean a walkout is imminent. But union officials hope it will move along negotiations for a new contract.

Nonetheless, the vote was an “audacious move” during a difficult period for labor, when most unions are putting the priority on job security, said Charlie Scontras, a labor historian and research associate at the Bureau of Labor Education at the University of Maine.

Advertising for replacement workers was also an extreme act, he said. “Can you imagine waking up over a cup of coffee and reading that?” Scontras asked.

The possibility of a strike would have been the talk of the town when Paul Rowland opened his shoe repair business in the Cumberland Mills area. “Nineteen years ago, that’s all anybody would have talked about or thought about,” said Rowland, 46.

But the mill’s role has shrunk over the years. About 334 people work at the mill, down from its peak employment of about 2,500 in 1974.