I have a bunch of records about Lockheed Martin in Cobb County using this arrangement for its second-largest aircraft plant worldwide -- so byzantine to dive into (and that AJC article really helped me get my bearings!)

We've written about changes afoot in the area, including, remarkably, the upset victory of a democratic socialist in a statehouse race to represent the district that includes the entire Lockheed Martin plant: inkstickmedia.com/meet-the-dem...

And now a new generation, motivated by US support for Israel's genocide in Gaza, is also calling on the church to divest from the weapons industry.

They've sent hundreds of postcards directly to the investment manager's office.

inkstickmedia.com/gaza-genocid...

The Tribune cites our exposé, copublished with the Salt Lake City Weekly, dove into the LDS church being a very rare faith-based investor to hold stock in nuclear weapons manufacturers:

inkstickmedia.com/cracks-in-th...

And in a Republican district (MTG)

A friend who teaches an elective course on photography says her students use AI to write their responses/critiques to photos she asks them to respond to. Why even take the elective arts class?!

And the rise of non-union/explicitly Republican Department of War contractors like Anduril and SpaceX will likely just further the trend of the weapons industry's long breakup from its labor unions

It means a lot that Lockheed Martin – nothing short of the largest corporate recipient of US taxpayer money and the world's largest weapons manufacturer – is creating such low wage jobs that workers live in extended stay motels!

And just to zoom out for the bigger context: the military-industrial complex of nowadays is radically different from the Cold War era, when these were often highly unionized shops + jobs that could support a family.

inkstickmedia.com/union-streng... @inkstickmedia.com

The article quotes a single mom who assembles circuit boards for weapons at Lockheed, now makes $20/hr and lives in an extended stay motel - absolutely shocking, but I’ve also been told similar stories about hourly workers for Lockheed in Marietta

“[Former union president] Masters said in 2022 that many of his employees could barely afford apartments in the Orlando area, and one of his new hires was sleeping in her car. That year, an entry-level employee at the factory earned a minimum of $15.45 an hour”

Wow re this detail - on the very first day of the Orlando strike, Lockheed sent an email to employees titled: “Procedure to Resign from the Union and Cross Picket Line.”

With some legalese tacked on about how they weren’t necessarily recommending that - bc doing so may be a violation of labor law

More on that K-12 pipeline into the weapons industry: bsky.app/profile/tkba...