Hoping to Land on Their Feet : Lockheed: Job-hunting is a struggle for the laid-off workers. And a $72-billion contract won’t help them.

In a perfect world, the announcement that Lockheed Corp. had won a $72-billion contract to build the Air Force’s latest jet fighter would have been good news to recently displaced workers at the firm’s Burbank plant.

But many of those workers greeted the news last week with mixed feelings of pride and resignation--pride that Lockheed beat a competing bid by rival Northrop Corp., resignation that it would have little personal significance for them.

“I think it’s great for Lockheed,” said Darlene New, 43, who was laid off from her $39,000-a-year job at the company’s Advanced Development Projects division last June. “They do have the best products.”

But the contract will not help New. Her former division is not included in the new program. “This would not have made a bit of difference to me if it had come earlier,” she said. “I knew there would be nothing in it for me.”

New is typical of numerous former Lockheed employees who are struggling to make ends meet after losing their jobs because of the company’s restructuring and imminent withdrawal from Burbank.

Some have found jobs at other companies, although at reduced salaries. Others are still looking, trying to keep their heads and optimism high in the difficult Southern California job market.

Many displaced employees said last week they were not disappointed or surprised that the new defense contract would not help them get their jobs back. They have gotten used to the uncertainty of the defense industry, and their focus now is on dealing with hard times.

“We owe $10,000 in taxes,” New said. “We had to spend the money from our savings plan to pay. We’re able to keep food on the table, and that’s it.”

After her layoff, New had a few unsuccessful stints working at a car dealership and truck body shop before landing her current accounting job in Valencia. She earns $23,000 a year--$16,000 less than she made annually at Lockheed.

Because her husband still works at Lockheed, the News still manage to make the mortgage payments on their 2 1/2-acre ranch in Leona Valley near Palmdale. “But if I didn’t have a husband, I’d be out on the street,” she said.

The family has eliminated almost all entertainment from their lifestyle--no vacations, no dinner outings. “One Friday night a month, we’ll order pizza,” New said. Soon, both she and her husband will be taking part-time night jobs. “Things can only get better, because they can’t get worse,” she said.

Most of the 5,500 jobs generated by the contract for the advanced tactical fighter program will go to displaced and current Lockheed employees at the corporation’s new aeronautical headquarters in Georgia and its partners in Kansas and Texas.

Even if displaced Lockheed employees here were willing to relocate, they would be placed at the end of the employment line and would not be likely to receive a position, Lockheed officials said.

Bud Gaydos of Tujunga, a numerical control machinist who has been out of work since last October, like so many others greeted the new Lockheed contract with mixed feelings.

“I felt divided,” Gaydos, 39, said. “It’s the same as a ballplayer who’s traded to another team. Your heart is still with the old team, and you still check the papers to see how they’re doing. But I knew the jobs would be going out of state, so I already dealt with it. I don’t feel too bad about it.”

Buoyed by savings, in addition to vacation and bonus pay he received from Lockheed on his departure, Gaydos spends much of his week looking for job leads at the Verdugo Job Center in Burbank, a federally sponsored facility located in the once-thriving International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers hall.

The center was established to help the Lockheed workers find new careers and get job training. Last month alone, 226 former Lockheed workers came to the facility looking for jobs with other companies.

Gaydos said he has interviewed for several slots but is still looking for just the right job. At Lockheed, he made $16 an hour.

“I look at the paper, get encouragement from people here,” Gaydos said last week as he sat at a small round table at the center. “It’s important to come here and get morale and support.”

His own morale has gone up and down in the past few months. His 9-year-old daughter has noticed that something is not quite right at home and that her father no longer goes to work each day. But she did have a good Christmas, thanks to the generosity of his friends. He reluctantly bowed out of an annual men’s weekend camping trip to Nevada that would have cost around $200.

“Sometimes you get down and try to think, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ ” Gaydos said quietly. “Then you realize you’re not doing anything wrong. That’s just the way it is. Everything happens for a purpose, and everything is going to be all right in this situation.”

Keeping up the morale of the displaced workers is a priority and a challenge, said David Hendon, the center’s director. He also warned some of the workers that the Air Force contract would probably not help them get recalled.

“I told them a few of them might get fortunate, but don’t count on it,” Hendon said. “It would be like counting on the lottery.”

“A lot of the employees deal in perceptions more than reality,” Hendon continued. “Many of them feel that they’re going to get called back, so they’re not doing what they should be doing. They’re waiting for recalls, which is dangerous.”

He added that because of the uncertainty of Lockheed employment, many displaced employees feel their present situation is temporary. “Many of them have been laid off before, but only for a little while, so they never considered themselves unemployed,” he said. “They think the same thing is going on here.”

Lockheed is continuing a vast restructuring and large withdrawal from its Burbank plant. The work force, which numbered near 26,000 in 1980, has been reduced to about 6,000. The corporation has been in a period of declining employment for a decade due to the reduced number of new military contracts.

When the restructuring is complete, only about six buildings housing the administration offices of the Advanced Development Projects division will remain at the 320-acre Burbank site.

When New was laid off last October, the news was devastating, especially since she thought she would be spared because of her top-secret clearance. “I thought I would be at Lockheed for the rest of my life,” she said at the time. “It is like a part of you is gone.”

Jim Benson, a displaced machine parts planner who spent 11 years at Lockheed, said he is finding the going tough.

“Looking for work is a harder job than working, that’s for sure,” Benson said as he sat at the Verdugo Job Center. He uses the center as his office, phoning potential employers, drawing up resumes.

“Most of the time, when I go out on interviews, they say they like my qualifications, but nothing comes through,” Benson, 50, said. “The job has been filled or it just falls through.”

Benson and his family used to look forward to weekend nights out, or trips to Solvang, or excursions to look at trains. All of that has stopped. He said the family has only enough money to make mortgage payments on its Sun Valley home for another two months.

“There’s a lot of anxiety,” he said. “I’ve never been out of work before for more than three days.”

Still, he feels no animosity or bitterness toward Lockheed. He, like other workers, blamed Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. They said Nunn, the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, lobbied for the decision by the Air Force to have most of the work done in that state instead of California.

“I think it all comes down to politics, and I’m displeased with it,” Benson said. “The politicians in California just let all those jobs go. They could have done a lot more. I really can’t fault the company.”

Braxton Berkley, a former structural assembler who was displaced in 1988 after working at Lockheed for 17 years, agreed.

“There are all these open facilities and warehouses at Lockheed in Palmdale,” Berkley, 59, said. “I just can’t figure this one out. There are all these people out here with all this knowledge. We could have added to this project. I don’t know. Maybe Georgia needed a boost in their economy.”

Berkley, who “retired” from Lockheed in 1988 to avoid losing benefits, wound up taking a lower-paying job at Continental Airlines. But Berkley has been lucky. “Continental has been real good to me. I love the people there. I just got an employee-of-the-month award. Everything has worked out fine.”

Still, at least one former employee hopes the new contract will allow him to return. Ted Moss, an assembler at Lockheed for 20 years before he was laid off last year, remains optimistic.

“I hope I can get back with them, but I don’t know yet,” said Moss, who has been working at a lower-paying job at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for the past several weeks. “I hope to talk with someone about it.”