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2 May, 2012
A local branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is now in its second week of a full strike at a major US Defense Department contractor, Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. Some 3,600 workers represented by IAM walked out when their contract ended at midnight on 22 April.
And early yesterday, 1 May, just as a prior six-year labour agreement expired, 800 IAM members went on strike against Caterpillar Inc. in Joliet, Illinois. The plant manufactures hydraulics and other components for heavy equipment, including mining trucks that Caterpillar makes at other factories in Illinois and elsewhere.
The walkout at Lockheed by IAM Lodge 776 in Texas is over a highly profitable company attempting to shut down a defined benefit pension plan for new hires. It is also over the company’s intent to eliminate several health care options under an insurance plan and removing the ceilings on what workers’ pay out-of-pocket on annual health care premiums. The strike is by three bargaining units of Lodge 776, including workers who assemble and manufacture the US fighter jets F-16 and F-35, firefighters, and nurses.
IAM Lodge 776 on Strike at Lockheed
It also includes Lodge 776 members employed at Lockheed testing grounds in Pax River, Maryland, and Edwards Air Force Base in California. Lockheed and the Pentagon have been under major pressure over cost over-runs on the so-called “Lightning II” F-35, Lockheed’s largest project and the US government’s most expensive weapons system.
The Pentagon has ordered 2,457 F-25s at a spiralling cost now of US$395.7 billion.
Lockheed Martin’s first quarter 2012 profits rose a full 20% over postings in for the same period in 2011, with net income rising to US$665 million. The company is offering a three-year contract with 3% increases each year, plus a signing bonus and higher pension payments to existing workers.
But workers are admirably striking for future workers and retention of a liveable pension scheme, as well as keeping earned medical benefits. IAM members voted by 94% on 22 April to reject the company’s proposal, and followed that with a 93% vote to strike. The Fort Worth aerospace plant employs another 10,000 contractors and non-bargaining union staff of Lockheed who continue to work through the strike.
In Illinois, Caterpillar – another profitable industrial manufacturer that has registered first quarter profits of US1.5 billion – is asking IAM Lodge 851 members to take a six-year wage freeze. Virulently anti-union Caterpillar is also seeking medical cost reductions by proposing a doubling of workers’ out-of-pocket health care costs.