Thousands Strike at Shipbuilder

Thousands of workers went on strike at Virginia’s Newport News Shipbuilding. “We haven’t heard a word” from shipyard management, Arnold Outlaw, president of Local 8888 of the United Steelworkers of America, said before workers struck. The union, which represents many of the yard’s 9,200 hourly workers, had said it would strike over what it says are insufficient raises in a proposed new contract. Shipyard spokesman Jerri Fuller Dickseski said the company had gotten no official notification from the union of a strike vote or that there would be a strike.