At its June meeting, Local S6 members voted to spend $350 to sponsor Bath Heritage Days at the “Friend” level.¹ Heritage Days is a multiday event around July 4th organized by Main Street Bath. Heritage Days brings thousands of visitors to Bath every year.² This year’s Heritage Days brought an art market, food trucks, beer gardens, a carnival, a car show, waterfront concerts, a firemen’s muster, a parade, sword fighting, and of course, fireworks.³ Bath Iron Works always sponsors Heritage Days. It is important for Local S6 to do the same before our contract expires next year. A Friend level sponsorship would have put us on banners at the event, as well as on the website. But leadership never wrote the check.

Edited August 8, 2025: Local S6 leadership never responded for comment. An explanation for “why” they never wrote the check only came to light after I published this article. It does not change the facts or opinions laid out here, but you can follow this link to an update I put out on the 6^th.

Check out screen grabs from the 2025 Heritage Days web page for proof. Main Street Bath credits BIW as a “Foundation Sponsor.” “General Dynamics Bath Iron Works” dominates the page, but Local S6 is missing from the list of “Friend Level Sponsors.”⁴ I spoke to someone familiar with the matter, and they confirmed Local S6 never donated the $350 approved by the membership.

This is because Local S6 leadership is more worried about appearances than activism. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been to any meetings this year. The mask slipped when I proposed a bylaw change to add a Pride committee. Members of our Executive Board supported a resolution at the International Convention calling for local lodges to form Pride committees.⁵ When members proposed forming one at Local S6, only one Executive Board member supported it.⁶ Others leveraged their positions in an attempt to defeat the proposal. The International ordered Local S6 to redo the vote when leadership’s impropriety came to light, but in the end, they got their way.⁷

Members who have voted against the Executive Board’s agenda have faced discipline. I spoke in favor of the motion to donate $350 to Main Street Bath, but I voted against it. I voted against every motion that first passed the Executive Board.⁸ “Nay” votes have the option to be recorded in the minutes. This gave me a platform to express my dissatisfaction with the Executive Board’s conduct over the last year. Leadership attempted to discipline me for my free speech. This would have violated federal law, so they dropped the issue.⁹

I still felt guilty for voting against the $350 donation, but I now feel vindicated in my opposition. It is not right to tell the members you are going to do something if you have no intention of actually doing it. It is hard to maintain faith in leadership when their words do not matter. It may be too late to do anything about Pride or training opportunities, but leadership still has time to do right by Main Street Bath. All motions remain good for a year, so Local S6 leadership can still donate the $350. It may not get our name on a banner, but better late than never.

1. General Membership Meeting Minutes, June 21, 2025, IAM Local S6. ↩︎
2. Paul Bagnall, “Bath Heritage Days celebrates 50 years with four packed days of events,” The Times Record, July 1, 2024; Maria Skillings, “Bath Heritage Days festival returns to downtown after two-year hiatus,” The Times Record, June 30, 2022; Kathleen O’Brien, “COVID-19 cancels Bath Heritage Days again,” The Times Record, January 25, 2021. ↩︎
3. Main Street Bath, “Heritage Days,” visitbath.com, accessed July 25, 2025; Paul Bagnall, “What to expect for Bath Heritage Days,” The Times Record, June 26, 2025; the author attended many of these events. ↩︎
4. Main Street Bath, “Heritage Days,” visitbath.com, accessed July 19, 2025. ↩︎
5. IAM, “PRIDE Committee,” resolved in Grand Lodge Convention, September 2025. ↩︎
6. General Membership Meeting Minutes, December 21, 2024, IAM Local S6; General Membership Meeting Minutes, April 12, 2025, IAM Local S6; Details of vote recorded in author’s notes, April 12, 2025. ↩︎
7. Brian Bryant to Scott MacDonald, February 27, 2025; General Membership Meeting Minutes, April 12, 2025, IAM Local S6. ↩︎
8. General Membership Meeting Minutes, June 21, 2025, IAM Local S6; Content of discussion recorded in author’s notes, June 21, 2025. ↩︎
9. In author’s notes, June 2025. ↩︎