Lockheed Martin to lay off 123,000 and other defense contractors may follow

President Obama’s administration has asked Lockheed Martin to delay its announcement of the layoffs of 123,000 employees to make the unemployment numbers look much better. Lockheed Martin is one of several defense contractors ready to lay off tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people after the election. These numbers may indeed rocket the unemployment figures past 8%. 

The layoff notice announcement came by way of Yahoo.com on October 1, 2012 and was quickly buried apparently to fool the voters into believing the economy is much better than represented. 

“It’s difficult to understate the importance of Lockheed Martin‘s latest announcement on the race for the White House: the defense contractor said on Monday it will not be issuing employee layoff notices to 123,000 workers on Nov. 2—just four days before the presidential election. Amidst all of the super PACs and campaign ads, the threat of telling a sizable chunk of voters in key areas of the country that they could lose their jobs if the election didn’t go Lockheed’s way was one of the most potent examples of corporate electioneering. But the layoff threat was largely unreported outside of Beltway trade publications. Here’s why today’s announcement matters:” More… 

Basically the bottom may fall out of the economy after November 6, 2012 with hundreds of thousands to be laid off. This would be devastating. Defense contractors agreed to delay the announcements in a sweetheart deal where the White House will pick up any costs associated with these layoffs. 

“Lockheed, one of the biggest employers in the key battleground state of Virginia, previously warned it would have to issue notices to employees, required by law, due to looming defense cuts set to begin to take effect after Jan. 2 because of the failure of the  Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — the  so-called Super-committee, which was created to find a way to cut $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade.” More 

This move to delay the announcements of these massive layoffs and cover the costs was totally illegal according to Senator Lindsey Graham. And remember, if you watched the third presidential debates President Obama assured the 70 or so million viewers that these cuts in defense “would not happen.”

“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says that he will do anything he can to block the Obama administration from reimbursing defense contractors for severance costs if the firms don’t send layoff notices to employees. The Obama administration issued guidance Friday that said defense firms’ costs would be covered if they have to layoff workers due to canceled contracts under the across-the-board cuts set to take effect Jan. 2. The layoff notices have become a politically charged issue because they could have come just four days ahead of the election because of a 60-day notice required by federal law for mass layoffs.” More…