The previous day the membership of International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 776 voted 993-778 to reject the contract proposal, one recommended for approval by the union's negotiating committee.

The offer was similar to those approved last year at Lockheed-Martin's Marietta, Georgia, and Palmdale, California, plants. It included wage increases of 4 per cent in the first year, and 3 percent in each of the remaining two years of the contract, and improvements in retirement and insurance benefits.

Many workers here expressed the view that given the high profits made by the company at this plant there was room for a better offer from the bosses. After a slim majority voted against the contract, the membership voted overwhelmingly to go on strike. This vote was 1,392 to 275, well over the two-thirds majority required.

The company's offer was rejected in part due to the lack of a signing bonus or improvements in the cost of living protection. Outsourcing is also an issue in this plant, which has had massive layoffs over the years. In the 1980s there were about 15,000 workers in the Machinists bargaining unit.

Larry Ritchey, a 20-year employee in final assembly, said, "We wanted to get a signing bonus like we've gotten in the last contracts in part as a way to help some of the workers who are laid off or facing layoff."

There was a signing bonus of $1,500 in the last agreement. Ritchey also said that there has been a lot of talk by the company about being "better than Boeing" and that the company should put its money where its mouth is since Boeing workers average $2.56 an hour more than the Lockheed workers. According to Mitch Stanley, who has 15 years with the company, the wage disparity is partly due to cost-of-living protection being paid at only one-third of the index rate for the last six years.

The striking Machinists are covering the 10 gates of the plant around the clock and have organized to avoid run-ins with the cops. In 1984 when workers at the plant--which was then run by General Dynamics--went out on strike, several strikers were arrested and some were fired over "strike violence." According to Larry Ritchey, the company and police used doctored videotapes to go after the strikers.

This time around the union has its own watchtower across from the main gate and does its own videotaping to counter that of the company. The picketing has been self-limited by the union to six at each gate at this point, and the company has failed to obtain any injunction against picketing.

The strike has halted production at the plant, although the company claims that supervisory personnel are completing some of the planes.

After the company's proposal was rejected, Lockheed sent letters out to all striking workers and every other company employee explaining it will withdraw its offer the following Sunday, and urged Machinists to contact the union leadership to let them vote again on the proposal. This pressure tactic went nowhere and negotiations resumed April 15 with a federal mediator. No new proposals came out of that meeting and the strike now enters its second week.

Bob Bruce is a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 716 in Houston and formerly worked at the Fort Worth plant from 1985 to 1987.  
 
 
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