Did Lockheed Martin Just Win Virginia for Obama?
By John Hudson | The Atlantic Wire – 14 hrs ago
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:
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In one word: Sequestration, the Congress-approved plan to strip some $500 billion in defense cuts over the next ten years. In June, Lockheed said it would have to issue layoff notices to workers under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act due to impending Pentagon budget cuts. Lockheed wanted assurances from the government that its contracts wouldn't be affected by sequestration.
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Do you know where many of Lockheed Martin's employees reside? Virginia, one of the all-important swing states of this election. It's a historically Republican state. In fact, before Obama's 2008 election, had won the state since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 bid. And pretty much all electoral map prognosticators say that if Obama wins both Virginia and Ohio this year, Mitt Romney has practically no chance of winning the presidential race. That's why if one of the biggest employers in the state were to issue layoff notices days ahead of the election, it could be devastating for President Obama.
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On Friday, the Pentagon issued guidance that promised two important things. "The guidance said the Pentagon did not anticipate killing any contracts on Jan. 2, the day automatic spending cuts are set to begin hitting defense spending," reports "The guidance also said the federal government would cover severance costs that are mandated under a federal layoff notices law." Voila! The next business day, Lockheed Martin announces it will no longer be issuing layoff notices.
http://news.yahoo.com/did-lockheed-martin-just-win-virginia-obama-183231738.html;_ylt=A2KJ3Ca_d2pQyGwA_UrQtDMD
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