America Doesn’t Have Enough Weapons for a Major Conflict. These Workers Know Why.
This summer, employees at several big defense companies went on strike. Their grievances highlight a much larger problem brewing beneath the surface.
Workers protest on a street outside.
Workers strike outside of the Lockheed Martin facility in Orlando, Florida, on May 15, 2025. | Phelan M. Ebenhack via AP
By Christopher Leonard
10/27/2025 05:00 AM EDT
Christopher Leonard is the author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy. He is currently writing a book about the U.S. defense industry.
ORLANDO, Florida — On the Monday morning of Memorial Day, Randy Tejada arrived at a picket line outside Lockheed Martin’s enormous missile factory here, joining about 40 of his colleagues as they stood on a grassy median nearby, holding signs and waving at the passing cars. The missile factory, strangely, was nestled between Disney World and Universal Studios; a giant Ferris wheel loomed across the street from the picket line, creating an almost festive atmosphere. But Tejada had a serious look about him, like a soldier taking up watch duty. He wore a tee-shirt that said: “Grumpy Old Vet. I do what I want.” The air was sweltering, but Tejada said he wasn’t bothered.
“I can stay here as long as I need to,” he said. “I’ve got experience in standing around for hours.”
He was citing his past career in the military: Tejada is a 32-year-old retired U.S. Army helicopter mechanic who joined Lockheed Martin in 2022 on the assembly line. But this spring, after two years of going back and forth with management over problems with his pay, Tejada, along with several hundred of his Orlando colleagues, decided he’d had enough. Wages weren’t keeping pace with inflation; between late 2020 and mid-2022, for example, workers got a 3 percent pay bump as inflation rose by 12 percent. Their health care plans were expensive, the pensions enjoyed by older workers had vanished and the cost of rent in Orlando was skyrocketing. When Lockheed Martin offered the labor union a new contract this spring, the union asked for double-digit pay increases to cover higher costs. The company offered about 3 to 4 percent instead. On May 1, the employees walked off the job and went on strike. For nearly a month, they left empty the workstations where they once assembled missile components, surveillance systems and other defense equipment. The striking workers heard that Lockheed Martin was employing managers, engineers and contract workers to keep the factory going.
Randy Tejada stands for a portrait.
Randy Tejada is a 32-year-old retired U.S. Army helicopter mechanic who joined Lockheed Martin in 2022 on the assembly line. | Christopher Leonard for POLITICO
The Lockheed strike was part of a wave of labor unrest that swept America’s military-industrial complex over the past year. On May 1, about 4,000 workers went on strike. Nearly 1,000 of them worked for Lockheed Martin, both at Tejada’s facility in Orlando and at another complex in Denver. It was the first labor strike at the Orlando factory since 1963. Another 3,000 employees went on strike in Hartford, Conn., against Pratt & Whitney, which makes engines and other critical components of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet. In mid-May, about 2,500 employees of General Dynamics nearly went on a strike at a nuclear submarine factory, before reaching a last-minute deal that kept them on the factory line. Last fall, 33,000 workers went on strike at Boeing, affecting production of both commercial and military aircraft and winning a 38 percent pay raise after seven weeks.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/10/27/lockheed-martin-strike-orlando-weapons-missiles-00514386?nid=0000018f-3124-de07-a98f-3be4d1400000&nname=politico-toplines&nrid=fa317941-9c11-4700-ade3-f08e128f4154
