ANOTHER 4 Per Cent Solution?

Recently I had lunch with a soon-to-be Northrop Grumman retiree, who has thirty-six years at Northrop Grumman.

He had decided to "retire" after receiving his WARN letter (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) and was sad to see that his manager just shoved him his layoff notice at him with no acknowledgment or appreciation for his hard work and loyalty to the company.

I can only assume that Northrop Grumman expects no loyalty from its employees, as there is certainly no loyalty to the employees from Northrop Grumman.

The given reason for the lay-offs of 500 employees at Northrop Grumman in El Segundo and Redondo Beach was that the government had mandated a $40 million reduction in labor costs.

(Also remember that Northrop Grumman will be hiring approximately 250 people for other contracts, and unfortunately Northrop Grumman employee skill sets are not interchangeable, nor are Northrop Grumman employees are trainable to do other work.)

According to my calculator, Northrop Grumman is saving $40million a year by not paying 500 employees an average salary of $80,000 a year.

Given that there are 12,500 employees in El Segundo and Redondo Beach, we see the logic of Northrop Grumman management - MUCH BETTER to lay-off 500 employees before the Christmas break so we don't have to give them Christmas pay.

ALSO NOTICE that given these 12,500 employees are earning an average of $80,000 a year, the $40 million reduction can be ALSO accomplished through a 4% pay cut of all 12,500 employees' salaries.

Northrop Grumman management evidently finds this a deal-breaker, as it is better to 500 employees a 100% pay cut instead of 12,500 employees a 4% pay cut.

While Boeing is cutting 10% of its executives and Lockheed 25% of its executives, Northrop Grumman is NOT doing likewise.

Northrop Grumman executives are obviously MUCH SMARTER and are NOT PAID AS MUCH as the Boeing and Lockheed executives so there is no need to cut any Northrop Grumman executives.