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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDefense Contractors Plan to Go Forward With Layoff Notices
Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney are going forward with plans to issue layoff notices to thousands of employees due to looming defense cuts under sequestration, despite administration claims that such warnings are unnecessary.
The layoff notices are required, say the defense contractors, under the WARN Act, which requests that federal contractors notify employees of potential layoffs within 60 days of action. The automatic sequester, which would cut $600 billion in defense spending over a ten-year period, would trigger on January 2. About $55 billion of that would affect Fiscal Year 2013. Sixty days notice means that the pink slips would go out November 2, four days before the 2012 elections.
The Labor Department put a couple theories in a guidance for the defense industry arguing that the notices were unnecessary. One, that Congress could overturn the sequester, seemed pretty weak to me. If current law means anything, you have to honor it with anything it triggers. But the Labor Department also said that, because of how procurement works, the actual layoffs wouldnt happen for months after the trigger hits, meaning that the 60-day clock should not begin on the first day of the trigger.
But the defense industry will ignore this. They know that the best way to ensure that they can get those cuts cancelled is to put the fear of God into their employees and build mass opposition from there. The industry has almost never followed the law when it comes to the WARN Act, but all of a sudden now they are sticklers for detail. The fact that this could affect the Presidential election in states like Virginia and Florida, with high concentrations of military contractors, isnt far from the minds of these CEOs, Im sure.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/08/10/defense-contractors-plan-to-go-forward-with-layoff-notices/
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)As I work for a defense contractor, I'd much rather get the notice than have the them follow the Dept of Labor. I'd rather know I'm on the chopping block through the holidays than just up and get laid off 2 January 2013.
And that's the consensus with my coworkers. They also think the Dept of Labor ruling was ONLY made this way because of the election and nothing more.
Edited to add: As far as saying this is to build opposition, the scuttlebutt is that 80-90% of Congress disagrees with sequestration already and they expect a change to come about during the lame duck session. Also the defense bill will go to a continuing resolution for another six months, so no one knows if that means at current funding levels or at sequestration levels. And they don't expect Congress to do the CR until October.