Marietta jobs in peril as Pentagon declines F-22s

The Defense Department plans to end the F-22 Raptor fighter jet program that employs 2,000 workers in Marietta. The move is part of one of the most sweeping makeovers of defense spending in recent history.

Yet the economic hit to the Atlanta area might not be as bad as initially expected. The Pentagon also announced Monday that it’s ramping up production of another jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, that is slated to be partly assembled in Cobb County.

Elissa Eubanks / eeubanks@ajc.com

Workers leave the Lockheed plant in Marietta during a shift change Monday.

Budget timeline

• May 1: Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Pentagon officials will finalize the budget request to present to President Barack Obama. Obama expected to concur with Gates.
• Early May: Office of Management and Budget transmits entire, detailed budget to Congress, including defense requests.
• May, June etc.: House and Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committees hold hearings and votes on Department Of Defense requests.
• Oct. 1: Start of the fiscal year. The budget should be in place by then.

-- Bob Keefe, Dan Chapman

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U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) wasn’t mollified.

“It is unacceptable that this administration wants to eliminate 2,000 jobs in Marietta and potentially 95,000 jobs nationwide at a time when unemployment rates are rising across the country,” he said.

The Pentagon has contracted to buy 183 F-22s built by the Lockheed Martin Corp. More than 140 have been built.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended Monday that money authorized in a fiscal 2009 supplemental budget request for four additional F-22s go forward, bringing the total to 187. If approved, the Marietta assembly line would remain running until late 2011.

Each F-22 costs a minimum of $150 million, but adding in research and development expenses over 20 years can more than double the price.

Despite the defense secretary’s budgetary wishes, Bob Shaw isn’t convinced the F-22 is history in Marietta.

“We’ve been through this before with every change of administration,” said Shaw, who has built planes for Lockheed Martin for 28 years. “We just have to see what the new programs will be.” Gates recommended that the Pentagon increase the number of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from 14 this year to 30 next year, and by as many as 2,400 altogether.

Roughly 4,500 people assemble the next-generation jet fighter at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant. Workers in Marietta build structural components for the F-35’s fuselage. Lockheed spokesman Chris Geisel didn’t know how many people in Cobb County work on the jet.

Even though that work will be less labor-intensive than the complete assembly of the F-22s, there will be substantially more of the newer planes.

“Good heavens, that could keep people working for some time,” said Larry Korb, a defense industry analyst at the Center for American Progress. He said he thought the “chances were pretty good” that many of the jobs in Marietta might be retained because of the F-35 program increases.

Even so, the cancellation of the F-22 program will be hotly contested in Congress. U.S. representatives from Georgia are readying to fight to maintain the program. Nationwide, the F-22 program directly employs about 25,000 workers and indirectly 95,000 or more by some measures — jobs that some say the nation could ill afford to lose in the current economy.

Congress will have the ultimate say on the future of the program. Over the next several weeks, members of Congress will likely face a huge assault by lobbyists and others who want to keep producing F-22s.

They’ll argue that other countries already develop fighter jets that can rival the F-22, and that the forthcoming F-35 is no match.

“With China and Russia developing fifth-generation fighter technology, today’s decision takes a short-sighted approach to maintaining American air dominance,” said U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Marietta.

Gates anticipates a fight.

“There’s no question a lot of these decisions will be controversial,” he said, “but my hope is that … members of Congress will rise above parochial interests and consider what’s in the best interest of the nation as a whole.”

In addition to scrapping the F-22 program, Gates announced plans to cancel other programs, including a previously planned upgrade to the fleet of presidential helicopters. He also wants to delay or cancel a Navy cruiser program and an Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter program.

The Pentagon also plans to dramatically restructure other programs, such as the military’s ballistic missile prevention program, which Gates wants to refocus more on “rogue” countries like North Korea and less on more traditional threats like Russia and China.

Originally, the Pentagon had wanted as many as 750 of the high-tech F-22s. They scaled back that amount in recent years as more pressing defense needs arose with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The F-22 hasn’t seen combat in either conflict.

Brian Morgan, who has built F-22s for the better part of 23 years, said upon leaving the sprawling factory Monday afternoon that “it’s too early to tell” the plane’s fate.

“I just hope it’s not over,” he said.

Staff writer Rhonda Cook contributed to this article.