Work at the Lockheed Martin plant in Marietta will go on today as machinist union workers rejected a proposed strike over a labor contract they deemed “substandard.”
On a 1,366 to 1,006 vote members of the Local 709 of the International Association of Machinists decided to stay on the job.
“We’ve got a pretty divided work force and it’s a pretty sad day,” Local 709 president Denise Rakestraw told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution late Sunday. “We’ll feel the consequences of this for years to come.”
Roughly 3,000 union members would have stopped working early Monday morning if it had decided to reject Lockheed Martin’s three-year deal. The current deal expired today.
The union leadership contended Lockheed wanted to take pensions from future employees and saddle all employees with what it considers an inferior health insurance plan.
In the face of record unemployment in Georgia, union members felt their action would have made better conditions for people who might be unemployed now but could be hired in the future by Lockheed Martin.
“The union has fought to make gains in wages and benefits over the years,” Rakestraw said. “It would be totally irresponsible for us to take away pensions for new hires.”
Lockheed Martin officials, who argued the pension change was needed to keep the the company competitive, were pleased with the outcome.
“What they saw in our proposal was a fair and equitable one,” spokeswoman Erica Crosling said Sunday night.
Lockheed Martin faced what would have been the first work stoppage since 2005 at the 8,000-employee plant that manufactures, among other things, the C-130J transport plane and the F-22 fighter jet. Crosling said if there had been a strike, then the plant would have continued to operate with its roughly 5,000 non-union workers
Union leaders began early Sunday recommending members turn down the contract offer.
But some union members weren’t impressed by the campaigning.
“I think it’s a pretty good contract except for what the new hires get,” said Clyde Latta, a 25-year industrial electrical technician and union member from Rome. “Bad things happen to new employees everywhere. It’s a bad time to go out on strike.”
The three-year contract, called by Lockheed Martin officials it’s “last, best and final economic proposal,” gives three consecutive wage increases of 3 percent, 3 percent and 2.5 percent for current employees, and a $2,500 bonus to all union members for ratifying the agreement.
The deal also gives each union employee an $800 cost of living increase each December and increases pension payments from the company by $11 a month.
But Rakestraw said she thinks a last-minute change to the company’s insurance plan is what swayed many members.
The initial offering eliminated all HMO’s in favor of a plan called LM HealthWorks, that would pay for 87 percent of an employee’s health costs.
As part of the “final” deal, Lockheed Martin officials added a Blue Cross/Blue Shield HMO that employees would contribute to at 15 percent.
With the vote, the company’s decision to replace pensions for anyone hired or rehired after Sunday stands. New workers will get a 401K-style retirement plan that Lockheed Martin would contribute $1,400 to each year in addition to employee contributions.
Union members compared the nearly $730,000 a current 30-year employee could draw in pension money over 23 years after retiring at age 55, versus the $42,000 payout a new employee would have for retirement after the same time at the company and at the same age.
It wasn’t enough, however, to convince a two-thirds majority to vote to strike.
“We understand the gravity of what we (were) asking them to do,” she said. “There are going to be an awful lot of disappointed people tomorrow.”
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