BATH — Maine’s Bath Iron Works is preparing to submit its bid for a contract to build Coast Guard cutters.

The deadline is Tuesday for bids from the Maine shipyard and two competitors— Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana and Eastern Shipbuilding in Florida —for a contract that could be worth up to $10 billion.

Bath Iron Works hasn’t built a Coast Guard vessel since the 1930s.

The contract is important as the General Dynamics subsidiary seeks to stabilize its workforce amid U.S. Navy cutbacks.

The shipyard’s largest union adopted a new contract in December with a goal of cutting costs and becoming more efficient to produce a more competitive bid for the Coast Guard contract.