Contract Offer Rejected by Lockheed Employees

Lockheed Corp. workers in Burbank and Palmdale have voted overwhelmingly against the Calabasas-based company’s latest contract offer, with 87% also voting to strike, the workers’ union said Monday.

In what the union described as a huge turnout Sunday, 95% of the members of the International Assn. of Machinists District 727 voted against Lockheed’s last offer. The last three-year contract was reached March 1, 1990, and affects about 2,000 workers at Lockheed’s Palmdale-based Lockheed Advanced Development Co. unit.

Charlie Brown, District 727 president, said in a telephone recording that there would be no strike action until Lockheed workers in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Marietta, Ga., had voted on their separate contract proposals. Workers in Sunnyvale were scheduled to vote Monday, and those in Georgia are voting next Sunday.

Pete Harrigan, a Lockheed spokesman, said the company was disappointed in Sunday’s results. Terms of the latest offer have not been publicly disclosed, although it reportedly contained a pay freeze and cuts in medical benefits. The company, however, said its offer would have provided more money for workers over three years.

Separately, Lockheed completed a three-part public offering of debt totaling $900 million. The company sold $300 million of 5.875%, five-year notes; $300 million of 6.75%, 10-year notes, and $300 million of 7.875%, 30-year debentures.

Lockheed plans to use the offering’s proceeds to repay short-term debt that it incurred to finance its recently completed, $1.53-billion purchase of General Dynamics Corp.’s jet-fighter business.