MARIETTA - It's not the salary. <br>
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That theme echoes along the pickets posted around Lockheed Martin's huge Cobb County plant and through the union hall just north of the factory. <br>
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It's the mantra of signholders, mostly middle-aged men, who walk the lines at nine spots surrounding the plant all day and all night. Nearly all call their pay -- about $47,000 per year, not counting overtime -- just fine. <br>
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Instead, Lockheed machinists say their strike is about job security, outsourcing, medical insurance costs and retirement benefits. Workers walked off the job March eleventh for the first time since a three-month strike in 1977. <br>
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Forty-seven-year-old Charlie Jordan of Powder Springs said, ``A hundred dollars an hour would be great. But if you don't have a job, one-hundred dollars times zero is zero.'' <br>
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About 2,700 workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are picketing in Marietta, which assembles the C-130-J Hercules transport and F-22 Raptor fighter. <br>
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Lockheed Martin is the nation's largest defense contractor, with more than $24 billion in yearly revenue and seven-thousand employees at the Marietta plant. <br>
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Another 150 workers are striking at parts plants in Meridian, Mississippi, and Clarksburg, West Virginia. Workers there ratified the contract, but are supporting the Marietta strike. <br>
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The union will start sending $115 weekly strike checks on Monday.
