Posted on 10/01/2012 10:27:39 PM PDT by george76
It's difficult to understate the importance of Lockheed Martin's latest announcement on the race for the White House: the defense contractor said on Monday it will not be issuing employee layoff notices to 123,000 workers on Nov. 2—just four days before the presidential election.
Amidst all of the super PACs and campaign ads, the threat of telling a sizable chunk of voters in key areas of the country that they could lose their jobs if the election didn't go Lockheed's way was one of the most potent examples of corporate electioneering. But the layoff threat was largely unreported outside of Beltway trade publications.
...
Overall, it goes without saying that the president dodged a major bullet with today's announcement, and the Romney campaign missed out an a huge opportunity to win over jittery Virginia voters.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
My wife works for LM. You’re right, all employees know what’s going on. LM management has been in communication on this issue for at least the last 6 months.
You know who doesn’t know about this? The local businesses supported by those employees’ salaries. They are the actual target of Obama’s obfuscation tactic.
He doesn’t want Virginians in general knowing about the 125k employee reduction.
Raytheon was a major sponsor for the 2004 DNC Convention.
Don’t forget, Murtha was a Dem and basically ruled the appropriation process (along with Jerry Lewis)
My son works for LM here in Texas. His dept. was told weeks ago that WARN layoff notices would be going out Nov. 1st. It’s not a secret. They even know how many in their dept. will be cut.
I was an IAM member and Union Steward for awhile. I used to go to the Union Meetings and grouse at them for not supporting Republicans. Man those were tough meetings. Here I was with the Socialist and I was a conservative!
So what. We in the industry know that Raytheon is the primary left leaning contractor. The industry as a whole leans right.
The employees in the defense industry are mostly conservative, agreed. However, the companies themselves are very pragmatic. When Dems run Congress, they will contribute more to Dems than the GOP. And vise versa.
They do what they need to get money appropriated. Sorry if that bursts any bubbles out there.
Sad thing is, the line workers, the UNION line workers, vote democrat regardless.
This is silly. Lockheed Martin employees are stupid enough to fall for this well advertised political scam?
Maybe LM is (was) serious about this. Intteresitng
I’ve talked to some of my friends who are still working at
Lockmart. I’m retired from there. They know, and they also
know that Obama is basically threatening the company mgnt.
Lockheed is in a no win situation, the company and the
workers are screwed. Besides WARN act, I’ve heard it also
may violate RICO and that unlawful aggrements cannot be
enforced if there is a change in the political winds.
Look here, LM workers all over the place. Lots of them freepers.
Lockheed is not laying off 123k people.....it only has 123k people......they are forced, due to the fact that sequestration has not been detailed down to the program level to give WARN notices to everyone.
Murtha looked out for them a lot. That’s why most defense contractors had an office in his district.
He wasn’t at all against defense spending, just using what was bought (when a Republican was in the WH, at least). Shoot ,when I was with L-3 a few years ago, you’d be shocked at which Democratic congressweenies we got to sponsor our programs. Trust me that it was unsavory, as a conservative, to have to deal with some of that motley crew.
True. Murtha was certainly pond scum. However, you must live in a liberal part of the country to have your Point of View. For Defense Contracting sites, the libs were I have worked keep their damn mouth shut because they are in the very small minority.
I do. I have also had the misfortune, as a program manager, to have to deal with the government affairs offices of two of the top 10 defense contractors on a frequent basis. As well as their patrons on the Hill.
It sounds like you had too many trips to DC. God, I loathe that town..
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