MOSCOW: While major US defence contractors like Lockheed Martin continue to generate millions of US dollars in profits from the supply of advanced missile systems to Ukraine, workers assembling such deadly weapons in the manufacturing facilities in Camden, Arkansas continue to struggle with salaries as low as those cooking burgers at McDonald’s, a Sputnik correspondent’s analysis of public data, including statements from local labour unions, showed.
After secretly sending an unspecified number of the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Ukraine in April, the United States is reportedly ready to lift the restrictions prohibiting Kyiv from striking targets in Russian territories with such weapons.
The ATACMS were delivered to Ukraine as part of the new US$61 billion aid approved by the US Congress in April.
Earlier in September, the US State Department said that Washington has provided over US$55 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its special military operation on February 24, 2022.
The ATACMS carry an effective range of 300 kilometres, compared to the 80-kilometre range of the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) supplied by the US to Ukraine earlier.
US defence contractor Lockheed Martin manufactures both the ATACMS and the HIMARS at the missile production facility located in the Highland Industrial Park in Camden, Arkansas.
With a population of only 10,000, Camden has become a critical manufacturing base of advanced weapons for the Pentagon. In addition to Lockheed Martin’s missile production plant, the industrial park in Camden also hosts a production facility for Aerojet Rocketdyne, which produces propel motors for weapon systems such as the Patriot Missile System, Stinger and Javelin.
After sending weapon systems worth billions of dollars to Ukraine, US companies like Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne had to ramp up their production to replenish such weapons for the US military.
The Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin a new US$227 million contract for the production of ATACMS in July. Aerojet Rocketdyne said in May that it completed the expansion and modernisation of its production facility in Camden to meet the demand of the US$215 million contract for replenishing US stockpile of weapon systems such as Javelin, Stinger and the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), which were sent to Ukraine.
While US defence contractors like Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne made millions of US dollars from the military aid to Ukraine, workers who assemble such advanced weapon systems at the manufacturing facilities in Camden continued to struggle with hourly pay as low as those who cook burgers at McDonald’s.
“Would you believe us if we told you that many of these workers are assembling our militaries’ rocket engines for (US)$15 to (US)$17 an hour? …. Meanwhile much of the country is watching McDonald’s workers starting at the same pay rate making Big Mac meals,” Shawn Vanderjack, an organiser at International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, wrote in a post on the organisation’s website, as he tried to call on workers in Camden to join his labour union.
Publicly available data on average salaries of different US workers matched the labour activist’s point.
According to data from popular employment website Indeed, the average salary for an assembler at manufacturing facilities of Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne in Camden is around US$15 per hour, while the average salary for a cook at McDonald’s is around US$14.16 per hour.
Vanderjack argued in the same post that the US defence industry tried to exploit the available cheap labour in small cities like Camden.
“So why Camden, AR (Arkansas)? Well as you may have guessed from the article’s headline, Camden is an isolated place with a poverty rate of 24.9 per cent. It seems that the heavy hitting US defence industry can’t allow our military secrets to be sent to Mexico or China for cheap labour, so they found an isolated community and built a defence empire with low wages and strategically started taking advantage of proud hardworking Americans that wish to live in rural America, and far away from the issues and headaches caused by city life,” he wrote.
Vanderjack’s labour union hosted a number of events in Camden in recent months to meet with workers from the missile assembly line.
In addition to being underpaid, workers in Camden also expressed concerns over long shifts and the physical challenge of the job on the assembly line.
According to the public job listing for an assembler at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Camden, the job carries a schedule of 10-hour shifts for four days a week and requires “lifting of up to 30-50 pounds.”
That’s why labour activists like Vanderjack continued to advocate for improved conditions for workers in Camden through a series of posts on social media. – BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
