The Polaris missile was a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) built during the Cold War by Lockheed Missiles & Space Division in Sunnyvale for the United States Navy while Northrop Grumman Marine Systems built the launch tubes and propulsion systems. For the most part the defense industries and traditional electronics manufacturers, with the exception of IBM, in the Santa Clara Valley were unionized, mainly by International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Teamsters. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a communist dominated union, but friendly to minority and women workers, gradually lost its place during the McCarthy era.