It's enough to make a member of Congress take notice: the prospect that hundreds of thousands of U.S. defense workers will receive you-may-be-fired warnings in the mail shortly before the Nov. 6 election.

Companies led by Lockheed Martin Corp., the world's largest defense contractor, say federal and state laws may require them to send out blanket notifications of potential job cuts before the election unless President Barack Obama and Congress act by October to avert automatic defense reductions of $500 billion over a decade that would start on Jan. 2.

To employment-law attorney Margaret Keane, giving mass dismissal warnings in such uncertain conditions looks more like a lobbying tactic by corporations trying to ward off the cuts than an effort to follow the letter of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.