Obama Administration officials in the Labor Department 'advised' defense contrators in July that it would be 'inappropriate' for those contractors to issue layoff warnings to their employees because of the impending cuts. The ONLY reason such a directive would be issued is to prevent hundreds of thousands of defense employees from learning they are about to lose their jobs - finding out just before the election.
However, many contractors, including Lockheed-Martin, stated that they may issue the notices anyway, to give their employees decent notice that they are about to be unemployed, and to comply with existing Federal regulations concerning issuance of layoff warnings.
The WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) requires employers with more than 100 employees to give 60 days written notice to its employees if there is a resonable chance of layoffs occurring.
Given that the contractors wouldn't commit to playing nice until after the election, Obama's Office of Management and Budget, yesterday, reissued the directive, and added the following carrot - if contractors agreed to wait until after the election to post such warnings to their employees, the Federal Government would cover all the contractor's expenses in relation to the layoffs - expenses which will run into millions upon millions of dollars.
In other words, Obama is buying them off - keep your mouths shut until after I am re-elected, and the taxpayers will foot the bill in January for you.
Obama doesn't want hundreds of thousands of people finding out they're losing their jobs due to failings of his administration until after the election - its that simple. To do it, he's trying to bribe companies with millions of taxpayer dollars and a way to duck current Federal law in regards to required layoff notices.
In addition to employees of defense contractors, thousands of civilian employees of the Defense Department will also lose their jobs - something that isn't getting any attention at all.
This is critical for Obama - thousands of the people who will lose their jobs in January are in the battleground states of Virginia, Florida, and Pennsylvania. How many Obama supporters in those states would switch their votes if they realize His Highness is going to fire them in January?
Update - Republicans in the Senate and House are sounding the alarm about this, trying to get the media to recognize that the Department of Labor is offering taxpayer bribes to defense contractors in order to get them to violate Federal law - all for political gain.
I mentioned that there was only ONE reason for Obama to do this - his re-election. That is incorrect. There is a second reason, and although it is secondary in importance to the first one, it should be recognized nonetheless. Democrats on the far left, led by Obama, dearly want sequestration budget cuts to take place. They want to see the Pentagon eviscerated because they hate the military!
Update II - Lockheed-Martin swallowed the carrot today, and announced it would not send out the required layoff notices to all of its 132,000 employees, backtracking on earlier statements the company made indicating it would issue the notices.
Lockheed-Martin has one of the biggest potential victims of the impending budget cuts - the F-35 JSF. If the sequestration cuts do happen on Jan.2, that program is almost certain to get axed. By playing ball with Obama, they are hoping to get in his good graces (in case he wins) so the program will survive. Lockeed-Martin ... DREAM ON. If the cuts happen, you guys are toast. It flat doesn't matter how many asses you kiss right now.
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