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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/24/150067/lockheed-to-hire-temporary-workers.html

Lockheed to hire temporary workers to fill in for strikers

Posted on Thursday, May 24, 2012Modified Thursday, May 24, 2012

By BOB COX | McClatchy Newspapers

FORT WORTH, Texas — Lockheed Martin on Thursday turned up the pressure on striking Machinists union members, announcing it would begin hiring temporary replacement workers to fill aircraft production jobs.

A handful of workers were being brought in from a temporary employment service and a few dozen more would be added next week, Lockheed spokesman Joe Stout said.

"We will add people incrementally each week as we need to," Stout said, with the goal of improving and boosting production until the Machinists return to work.

The action by Lockheed to begin augmenting its production workforce comes as the strike by about 3,600 members of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers is in its fifth week.

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Replacement Workers: Management's Big Gun

By PETER T. KILBORN, Special to The New York Times

Published: March 13, 1990

<snip>One reason that companies now think that goal is possible is the lesson they drew from the illegal strike of 11,500 Federal air traffic controllers in August 1981, seven months into Ronald Reagan's first term as President. After the controllers defied a back-to-work order, Mr. Reagan dismissed them, filled their ranks with permanent replacements, and the union collapsed.

'A Signal to Other Employers'

The Government's success in keeping the air traffic system working impressed many unionized companies.''Reagan made it respectable to bust unions,'' Mr. Baptiste said.

Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution, said Mr. Reagan emboldened management to risk the strain to its business of taking on less experienced workers. ''The fact that the President was able to keep the air traffic system going indicated that there was a lot more scope for replacing workers than people imagined,'' Mr. Burtless said. ''If you can replace air traffic controllers you can certainly replace bus drivers.''

The permanent replacements, often recruited from the ranks of the unemployed or from low-paid employees of other businesses, are a variation on the temporary substitutes vilified by trade unionists as ''scabs'' or ''strikebreakers'' but nevertheless regarded as a part of management's legitimate arsenal. Temporary replacements leave at the end of a strike, but permanent replacements are assured the strikers' jobs. After a strike, the law allows strikers first claim on their old jobs, but only if replacements vacate them.