One of the key features of the 2010 Pentagon budget is the phasing out of several hi-tech, big ticket weapons systems, among them the F-22 Raptor fighter jet. In April, I traveled to Middletown Connecticut to speak to workers at the Pratt and Whitney plant that manufactures all the engines for the F-22. Pratt’s Connecticut operations, which once stood at around 25,000 workers now number 4,300 and many of the remaining employees fear that if the budget goes through, it could be the end of a way of life in Connecticut.

On July 21st, the Senate voted 58 to 40 in favor of phasing out the F-22. This article won the Philip Greer Memorial award for outstanding student financial writing at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism this May.

Jonah Engle
May 14, 2009

New York – When Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently unveiled the Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2010, much of the media coverage framed it as a reduction in military spending. The opposite is true. At $534 billion, the base Department of Defense budget represents a $21 billion or four percent increase from Bush’s last budget.

But that is little consolation to the workers who build the conventional weapons systems which are set to be scrapped or scaled back as part of Gates’ plan to retool the military. The Secretary of Defense says he wants to spend more on the troops and reorient the military to face the new kinds of conflicts the U.S. is engaged in in Iraq and Afghanistan. And while a fight looms in Congress to retain some of the weapons slated to be cut, the workers who build them are bracing for the worst.

One of the decisions that has encountered the most vocal political resistance is the scaling down of the F-22 Raptor, a hi-tech fighter jet that is without equal. Conceived during the Cold War, it was designed to beat the air defense systems of the U.S.’ main threat, the Soviet Union, a rival with a sophisticated air force and air defense systems. At the time the Pentagon had plans to order more than 700 jets. But by 2004, when the first Raptors were delivered, the world was a very different place and the U.S. was fighting two wars against enemies that didn’t have a regular army let alone an air force.

After spending more than $60 billion dollars on the F-22, a plane that has never been used in combat, Secretary Gates has decided to limit orders to four more jets, capping production at 187. The ripples from that decision reach far and wide.

One of the defining features of weapons manufacturing is that production is subcontracted out across many states and companies. This is not simply to be cost-effective, says Bill Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. “Companies are conscious of wanting to get suppliers in as many states as possible,” he says, to guarantee the broadest base of political support.

According to Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-22, production of the jet is spread out across 43 states, employing 95,000 workers at over 1000 firms.

One state with especially strong ties to the F-22 is Connecticut, where two United Technologies Corporation companies, Pratt & Whitney and Hamilton Sundstrand, build parts of the jet. According to UTC’s President Louis Chenevert, 2,000 to 3,000 jobs in the state depend on the F-22, both at UTC companies and various suppliers.

A number of those jobs are at Pratt & Whitney’s Middletown, CT operations. Its secured plant, down a quiet country road where you are likely to spot wild turkeys, is where all the engines for the F-22 are assembled.

On a sunny spring afternoon, some of the workers from the plant have gathered at local 700 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union for a weekly shop stewards training session. As they arrive they call each other “brother” and engage in playful ribbing before the meeting gets started. But underneath the jovial banter, there is concern about the future.

“Everybody’s scared,” says Ronald Frost. When he started working at the plant in 1979, “Pratt was hiring like crazy,” he says. “There was no doubt at that time that you pretty much had a job for life. Now it’s questionable.” Over the years, Frost says through a combination of greater productivity, outsourcing, and contracts with foreign buyers who required a piece of the manufacturing, the Connecticut operations of Pratt & Whitney have fallen from around 25,000 employees to around 4,300.

Frost thinks he has enough seniority to weather any potential cuts, but he worries about lost overtime, something the father of three needs more than ever. His wife just lost her job at a lock company, and one of his daughters can’t find work.

The threat looms larger for more recent hires like Valerie Stewart. When she landed a job at the Pratt & Whitney plant four years ago it was a dream come true. After a divorce 10 years ago, the single mother of two worked several jobs while earning her airframe and powerplant license. “That’s what brought me into aerospace,” says Stewart “a need to support my family.” After working at Bombardier for several years, she switched to Pratt & Whitney because of its better salary and benefits, and the prospect of continuing her college education with the company’s assistance. Stewart, who recently got remarried after Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage, was also drawn to Pratt for its progressive policies.

As with Frost, the recession has already hit home, her wife also just lost her job when Griswold Health Care bought the facility she worked at and promptly closed it, leaving Stewart the sole bread-winner for a family of four.

For now she’s trying to stay optimistic, reassuring her kids that no matter what, she’ll look after them. Stewart, who just bought a house, says if the job cuts come she’ll probably rent it out and go wherever there is work. As an engine mechanic Stewart is a highly skilled worker, but where the jobs are, is less certain.

“It used to be the auto industry,” Frost says “and we know what’s happening there. We’ve lost such a grip on manufacturing in the U.S.” Two days later Chrysler files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The shop stewards at the Union hall are part of an increasingly rare breed, the unionized blue-collar worker with good benefits who earns enough money to provide a comfortable middle class life to a family on one salary. “It’s the best game in town,” says Frost of his job at the plant.

Another thing that stands out among all of the workers is that they are not alienated from their labor. To a person, their eyes light up when they talk about their jobs, they find meaning in their work. “I love it,” says Wayne Anthony, who at 25, is the youngest of the shop stewards at the meeting. “You are a jet engine mechanic, not a lot of people are jet engine mechanics,” he says smiling. On the other end of the age spectrum, 64-year-old, Israel “Izzy” Recio has been working at Pratt for 44 years. He talks with pride about bouncing his young grandson on his knee who points to planes in the sky and says “pop-pop does that.”

Even for those nearing retirement, the cuts are no less emotional; when Recio thinks that he might be forced to retire early, he gets choked up. “I want to go out on my terms,” he says regaining his voice, “just to be an example to my kids.”

They know they are the last of a vanishing breed and the union is putting up a fight. Frost says he’s heading to DC shortly to lobby to save the F-22, and he’s glad for the strong support of Connecticut’s congressional delegation. “All of them have been just great supporting the F-22,” Frost says.

As the country is mired in the worst recession in decades and job losses mount, weapons contracts stand out as a way for legislators to secure jobs in their districts. Unlike other goods, weapons systems are not subject to the whims of consumer demand and even as the economy worsens, demand keeps growing. The total defense budget is at its highest level in constant dollars since WWII, and has grown every year for the past 11 years. Since 2000, its has grown 78 percent in inflation adjusted dollars – from $387 billion in fiscal year 2000 to 687 billion in FY 2009.

Even excluding the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, military spending has increased 39 percent; an average of $16 billion a year. Gordon Adams, who was a senior budget official for national security in the Clinton White House, says the war supplementals have included a lot of spending that had nothing to do with the wars. All told the United States’ military budget is close to what the rest of the world combined spends on defense.

But Travis Sharp, a military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, says there is very little debate in Washington about the size of pentagon budgets or how much firepower the country needs to be safe.

“Politically, cutting defense spending is a non-starter,” says Sharp. And he says its goes beyond legislators. “For people that have aspirations to working in the executive branch or want to work at prominent think tanks, advocating for less defense spending is not the route to attain those positions.”

The unassailable nature of government spending on defense was highlighted during the last presidential election campaign. As the economy was unraveling, Republican candidate John McCain promised he’d freeze all discretionary spending except for military expenditures.

But contractors don’t just rely on Republican support. Lockheed Martin and a handful of other prime contractors have been able to count on a broad base of political support not only geographically – with jobs scattered throughout hundreds of congressional districts – but from both ends of the political spectrum. Support for military contracts, says Hartung of the New America Foundation, is “one of the few things left that’s bipartisan.”

There are political reasons for this. Sharp says Democrats are wary of being seen as weak on national security. And Adams says, “there is nothing worse in American politics than the accusation that you are not supporting the brave men and women in the armed forces.” There are powerful economic reasons as well. In a country where government intervention in the economy has traditionally been frowned upon, weapons contracts have long been the exception to the rule.

If bringing jobs to politician’s districts weren’t enough, there are generous campaign contributions for legislators who support defense contracts. Lockheed Martin is the largest defense aerospace donor and lobbyists from this sector give generously to politicians of all stripes.

That includes everyone from conservative Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia where the F-22 is assembled, to liberal Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, whose district includes Middletown. Last year, Chambliss got $140,000 – the highest donation from that sector to a politician not running for President. DeLauro and Representative John Larson (whose district also includes part of Middletown) received a combined $99,450 from the defense aerospace sector last year, well above the average donation of $16,198 to members of the House.

All this adds up to a looming battle with Congress over the military budget for President Obama. So far 44 Senators and 200 representatives have signed a letter to the President expressing their opposition to the cuts to the Raptor fighter jet program.

Several requests for interviews to members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation went unanswered, but they spelled out the basis for their opposition to the cuts in a joint letter to the President on April 7. Their position rests on two arguments.

The first is the deterrent value of the jet. It’s a case also made by Middletown’s mayor Sebastian Giuliano. Outside his office is a painting of two Raptor fighter jets in flight, “we’re a big fan,” the mayor says pointing to the planes. As he sits in his office overlooking the Connecticut river a few miles upstream from the Pratt & Whitney plant, Giuliano recounts his experience in an F-22 flight simulator and passionately describes the jet’s awesome power. “I want our military forces to have the best equipment in the world,” he says and he quotes a former air force pilot and Lockheed employee, “We don’t want it to be a fair fight, we want to win 100 to nothing all the time.”

The military argument was recently undercut by an op-ed in the Washington Post that was jointly written by the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force in which they supported Gates’ plan to cap the number of planes at 187.

The second argument made by Connecticut politicians and union members is that the layoffs that will come from phasing out production of the F-22 will erode the knowledge base required to build the next generation of fighter jets, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Work on the F-35 is set to pick over the next few years and the jet’s engines will also be made at the Middletown Pratt & Whitney plant.

“You can’t just disperse the skill base and hope in a couple of years that you will be able to put it back together again,” says John Harrity a spokesperson for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace workers. Harrity says the average worker at the Pratt & Whitney plant in Middletown is around 54 years old. “Many people don’t realize how much of the knowledge is contained on the shop floor, its not contained in the instructions manuals.” Mayor Giuliano says this loss of skilled labor could also occur at the many local shops that supply Pratt & Whitney.

“Balderdash,” says Gordon Adams who teaches Foreign Policy at American University. He points out that since WWII America’s fleet of military aircraft and the number of people building them has steadily shrunk with no impact on the country’s ability to build new generations of jets.

As he drives to local 700 along a country road lined with trees sprouting new leaves, Harrity says its time for America to consider a more fundamental question than precisely how many more Raptor fighter jets are needed to ensure national security. “This country’(s) industrial policy since the end of WWII, basically has been military production,” says Harrity. “Whenever they want to boost the economy, they do it through boosting military production. If they don’t want to do that, that’s fine but lets have a peace time industrial policy.” Harrity points to the support provided by European governments for the development of the Airbus as a potential model for the United States.

President Obama’s stimulus package is not going to help any of the workers who might get laid off at Pratt, Harrity stresses.

“You just don’t say thanks for the memories and then head on out, say well we are creating jobs making bridges,” says Harrity. “They are some of the most highly skilled workers in the world,” Harrity says of the union members he represents, “but they are not going to become healthcare workers or go into road building.”