LEWISTON – Bath Iron Works announced its decision Wednesday to lay off 30 workers – painters and cleaners – effective on Friday, Sept. 22.

The move may frighten the 3,500 members of the shipyard’s largest union much longer.

For the first time in memory, BIW management made the decision to let the workers go without any discussion with the union, Local S6 President Mike Keenan said.

“Hundreds of layoffs have been avoided in the past,” Keenan said. “Now, there are no conversations. There’s no anything.”

Repeated calls Wednesday to shipyard management were not returned.

News of the layoffs surfaced last Friday, when BIW management issued a notice to the union that as many as 30 workers would be laid off. The notice is a requirement of the local’s contract with the shipyard.

On Wednesday morning, managers gathered the 30, some of whom have as much as 12 years’ experience at BIW, Keenan said

“Some feel as though BIW turned its back on them,” he said. “They’re upset.”

One particularly sore point: The layoffs come just as workers in other parts of the yard are being asked to work overtime to complete their work.

“In the past, we’ve moved people around and scheduled extra days off,” Keenan said. “Volunteers have stepped up.”

Nothing of the sort was possible this time, he said.

“There was no heads-up, no ‘what can we do to get you through,'” Keenan said.

On Wednesday, the targeted workers were informed about applying for unemployment. Managers answered no questions from the workers.

To Keenan, it’s a matter of “disrespect” to a work force that has worked hard and weathered many prior concessions.

“They’re looking at paper,” he said. “They’re not looking at jobs.”

It makes it scary for every union worker at the yard, he said.

So Keenan and other union bosses plan to begin contacting state and local representatives from around the state, including those in the Lewiston-Auburn area, where about 40 percent of the union workers live.

Their aim: to inform lawmakers about the yard’s work.

“That’s where we’re headed,” he said. “We have no choice.”

Caring for the newly unemployed workers will fall on the state, which has already given millions of dollars in tax breaks to the company, he said.

Union leaders are also discussing some form of protest at Saturday’s planned christening of the yard’s newest destroyer.

Keenan wishes the climate at the yard were different, he said. Such tactics are all that’s left when management refuses to sit down and talk, he said.

“They never follow up or follow through,” Keenan said. “They just say, ‘We’ll get back to you.’ And they never do.”