NORTHROP—Unions Plan New Effort At Northrop

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With Northrop Grumman Corp. poised to grow substantially amid a defense industry build-up, local labor leaders are quietly stepping up efforts to unionize the defense company’s 10,000 workers in Los Angeles County.

The effort began last year with the two aerospace labor unions the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and United Aerospace Workers (UAW) mutually deciding that IAM should undertake a new push to unionize Northrop.

That push is now in full swing after a team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. and including Northrop last month was awarded a contract to build the Joint Strike Fighter, what could be the largest military contract in history.

“We secretly have a couple campaigns going on (involving) Northrop Grumman, and we don’t need any press,” said Rod Weigand, director of organizing for IAM’s District 25, which represents IAM locals statewide. “We have not had success up here organizing Northrop. They are constantly watching our folks. They’ll do anything to keep a union out.”

IAM currently represents 11,400 workers at 51 companies in California, about 6,000 of whom work in Southern California.

Northrop has a long history of successfully fending off attempts to organize its L.A.-area workers, according to National Labor Relations Board records. Among the stymied drives: IAM in 1997, Graphic Arts International Union in 1979, Teamsters in 1973, Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union in 1973 and UAW in 1971 and 1968. The NLRB does not intercede until 30 percent of a bargaining unit’s members sign union authorization cards calling for an election.

Northrop insists its workers are treated well, even paid more than union workers in many cases, and that it is essential for the company to remain nonunion in order to be successful.

“Northrop has always wanted to be nonunion because that gives us greater flexibility to get people doing the kind of work we want them to do,” said George Legg, Joint Strike Fighter business manager at the Northrop’s Air Combat Systems unit.

Union officials concede that Northrop pays wages similar to those of the unionized aerospace/defense giants. Weigand said that Northrop gave its hourly employees a 6 percent pay hike when word of last year’s IAM/UAW meeting made its way to company officials.


Other factors

But pay is not the only issue. Union officials said that without a collective bargaining agreement, Northrop’s “at-will” employees are denied seniority protection during layoffs, union representation at grievance hearings, protection against health benefit reductions, pension funds and set wage increases.

Northrop officials counter that its workers do not need union protection to be treated well.

“Northrop Grumman monitors and benchmarks salaries and benefits offered by our industry and union-represented companies to ensure we provide competitive compensation packages to all our employees,” said Northrop spokesman Bob Bishop. “We also have a proven internal grievance system that has worked successfully without the need for third-party intervention.”

Union officials argue that it is always more fair to have a union representative on hand during grievance hearings, and that seniority protection during layoffs is an important issue.

But during the current build-up, layoffs are the last thing on the minds of defense contractors. Union officials acknowledged that apathy has been an obstacle to rounding up support.

The current environment, union officials said, is similar to 1981, when Northrop landed the B-2 Stealth Bomber program, resulting in a $28 billion windfall that kept Palmdale workers satisfied until the last of the 21 planes was delivered to the Air Force last summer.

The workforce on that project has been slashed from 13,000 in the early 1990s to just 1,000 maintenance and repair workers today.

“The trouble is we have to get the people to come to us,” said Bob Gutierrez, assistant regional directing business representative for IAM’s District 25. “When they had the B-2 Bomber, they were on Cloud 9. They had work and a lot of overtime. Seniority doesn’t matter to anyone until you get your pink slip and you’re laid off.”


Unionized acquisitions

Northrop officials point out that several of the company’s operations nationwide are unionized. But those facilities had been unionized before being acquired by Northrop. The company’s only unionized workforce locally is at the 1,600-employee Azusa plant of Aerojet-General’s electronics and information systems unit, which Northrop bought last month to add to its newly formed Space Systems Division.

Last year, Northrop sold off its unionized commercial aerostructures business to the Carlyle Group for $1.2 billion. The transaction made Northrop’s Dallas-based Integrated Systems Sector union-free.

Given Northrop’s track record, IAM’s desire to maintain a low profile during its recruitment drive makes sense, local labor leaders said.

“Having union workers talk to non-union workers is the most powerful weapon a union has,” said David Sickler, director of the AFL-CIO’s regional organizing committee. “(But) as soon as it becomes known, the pressure from management really starts to bear down on the workers.”

IAM’s drive comes at a time when Northrop is preparing to aggressively staff up in the Los Angeles area.

As lead subcontractor under Lockheed, which beat out Boeing Co. for the $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract, Northrop is expected to add 1,000 to 1,200 jobs at its Air Combat Systems operations in El Segundo and Palmdale.

The company is to receive 20 percent of the $19 billion allotted for system development and demonstration work, which includes design and integration of the center fuselages and weapons bays on 22 test planes to be assembled by 2012.

Northrop also builds the aft and center fuselages for the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet in El Segundo, the Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance plane in Palmdale, and maintenance and repairs of the B-2 Stealth Bomber in Palmdale.

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