Machinists at Georgia Lockheed Martin plant begin strike

<p>Machinists at a Lockheed Martin plant, some with more than an hour left in their shifts, locked up their toolboxes, clocked out and left work, commencing a strike just after midnight Tuesday, a union representative said.</p><p>The machinists are concerned about possible cuts in defense spending and have been threatening to strike unless a last-minute contract is reached. At issue between the company and the roughly 2,800 members of the International Association of Machinists Local 709 are pay, health care premiums and retiree insurance benefits.</p><p>"The picketers left here about 11:45 to go to their gates, and they were instructed not start picketing till 12:01," said union representative Terry Smith, speaking shortly after midnight from the union hall, about a mile from the plant.</p><p>The workers inside the plant were scheduled to get off at 12:15 or 1:15 a.m., he said.</p><p>Smith said eight picketers each will march outside four designated gates at the plant, "and the company's not supposed to let any regular Lockheed employee come in the other gates," Smith said.</p><p>Smith said Monday prospects for reconciling the differences between the machinists and management looked bleak.</p><p>The union, by a 2-1 margin, rejected on Feb. 27 a tentative contract that would have raised hourly pay 10 percent over three years and given $1,500 signing bonuses. Smith said the union recommended members approve the contract. Lockheed workers typically earn about $25 an hour.</p><p>He said the members likely chose not to approve the contract because they are worried about the company's request for higher health care premiums and the elimination of retiree medical benefits for people hired after the contract is imposed.</p><p>Workers at the plant in Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta, build F/A-22 Raptor fighters and C-130J transports.</p><p>Georgia lawmakers have been lobbying against proposed reductions in Pentagon spending on the two aircraft types.</p><p>A top Air Force official told senators last month that the Pentagon was reconsidering cuts to the Georgia.m.ade aircraft because of new information about the costs of such a reduction.</p><p>A report due at the end of March is expected to give the Pentagon more information about the costs.</p><p>Lockheed Martin's Marietta plant employs about 7,800 workers, with 2,300 working on the F/A-22 Raptor program. The C-130J program employs about 2,000 workers.</p>