(AP) — Pete Hegseth touted the need to boost defense manufacturing during a morale-boosting appearance last month at one of the U.S. Navy’s largest shipbuilding contractors. Now 627 designers, clerks and technicians at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works have gone on strike, just as the U.S. intensifies its war effort in Iran.

They voted to reject the shipyard’s proposed wage offer of 10.1% in the first year followed by 4% in each of the following three years.

General Dynamics “continues to make record profits off our labor,” union President Trent Vellella said in a statement. “We had hoped the company took to heart the statements made by Secretary Hegseth here at GD BIW on February 9th because, our membership certainly did.”

General Dynamics said it will continue operations at the shipyard, which has built naval ships for more than a century. Its total workforce is about 6,800.