Negotiators for Newport News Shipbuilding and its biggest union plan to meet next week to resume contract talks, after union members rejected an agreement the two sides reached in November.

United Steelworkers Local 8888 asked to resume bargaining and the shipyard has agreed, both sides say.

In a social media post, Local 8888 said it is “optimistic but realistic.” In another post, the union said it still wants to push for pay that recognizes its members are essential workers – that is, employees who worked through the pandemic.

Newport News Shipbuilding spokesman Danny Hernandez said the company looks forward to what the union has to say. But, he said, “the company remains disappointed that after months of bargaining, relatively few USW members actually voted to disapprove the tentative agreement.”

Local 8888, which represents 12,000 of the yard’s 25,000 employees, rejected the contract agreement by 1312-684 vote.

Local officials said the 60-month agreement’s pay increases averaged to 2.3% a year.

But the yard said that doesn’t account for the faster automatic movement through pay grades that the agreement also promised. While the impact varied, for entry level employees, that faster movement would 51.73% increase for entry level pay grade 2 employees, a 32.73% increase for pay grade 7 employees and a 20.43% increase for pay grade 11 employees. For workers already at the top paygrades, the increase over five years would total 11.75% — an average annual increase of 2.35%. For the whole Local 8888 membership, the yard said average annual increases amount to 4.7%.

Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com