Recent talks initiated by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services, the first since March 11 when the strike began, ended in a standoff. "They don't want to talk, they don't want to discuss. They just want to mess with us. It's been going on for years," explained Harold Jones, 53, who has worked at the plant for 22 years.

Like many strikers, Jones cites company outsourcing of work as the main issue in the strike. "If there's no protection against outsourcing, I'll stay out on strike," he said. "What have you got to lose? You're going to lose your job anyway. It's really disgusting to have your supervisor tell you to your face that the company is taking machines out and cutting them to pieces just to make sure you'll never work on them again."

Kathy Doyal, 48, has worked at Lockheed for 16 years. "But I've been laid off four times. When I came back after a five-year layoff from 1988–92, 10,000 jobs were gone." After two years on layoff this time around, Doyal was called back to work and four weeks later was on strike.

"Lockheed called some of us laid-off workers back in the hopes that we would vote against the strike," she said. "But the proposed contract language on job classifications jeopardizes hundreds of jobs. So I went down to the union hall and I told them 'For this we strike.'" Doyal works in the union hall kitchen and delivers coffee to the picket line.

The company is demanding the right to add or do away with a given job classification at any time. Job combinations will not only directly result in fewer jobs throughout the plant, but callback and seniority is weakened when a job classification no longer exists.

Layoffs by Lockheed are common and few workers have 20 years of uninterrupted employment. The intermittent layoffs benefit the company, which uses a formula to calculate retirement benefits that leaves many workers struggling to continue working just to qualify for a company pension. The right to a decent retirement is an issue in the strike.

An April 11 rally at the plant gate drew 150 people in support of the striking workers. "Our cause is just," explained Jimmy Farist, vice president of the local.

On the ride back to the union hall from the plant gate rally, several union members explained that under the provisions of the proposed contract, elementary worker-to-worker solidarity may be grounds for disciplinary action.

An amendment to the contract language on "Strikes and Lockouts" proposed by the company states that the union cannot "cause or engage in nor permit its members to cause or engage in, nor shall any employee covered by this Agreement take part in any strike, picketing, sympathy strike, slowdown or stoppage of work."

This provision would bar the IAM and its members from organizing the kind of in-plant walk-throughs and informational picketing the union staged to mobilize for the contract fight. Strikers members say the purpose of the vague language is also to prohibit the union from reaching out and expressing solidarity with other unions who are resisting attacks.

Arlene Rubinstein is a meat packer and a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1996 in Atlanta.  
 
 
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