This is a story widely ignored by the lamestream media. Under Obama the NLRB apparently has been given the power to substitute its judgment for that of Boeing management as to where it may locate production facilities. Last month the NLRB, at the behest of the IAMAW claimed that Boeing's decision to open an assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina violated the rights of its unionized workers in Washington. In doing so, the NLRB has given a unique and tortured reading of the 1935 Wagner Act and ignored decades of Supreme Court and NLRB rulings.
It's no surprise that South Carolina is a right-to-work state where workers cannot be compelled to join a union. In September 2009, Boeing's workers in that state voted to end their representation by the IAMAW. At the time, the union accepted this defeat without a peep. Prompted by the same union the NLRB is claiming that moving businesses to right-to-work states, by itself, is evidence of unfair labor practices. If it stands, it will be an incentive for new businesses to start ONLY in right-to-work states.
As part of its campaign, the NLRB has lied about what Boeing has done. It claims that Boeing has decided to remove or transfer work from Washington to South Carolina. The truth is that Boeing has ADDED 2,000 workers in Washington to build its new 787. Moreover, the IAMAW contract specifically gives Boeing the right to locate NEW production facilities whereever it thinks best. Boeing's existing assembly plant in Washington will continue to produce seven 787's per month while the South Carolina facility will produce three.
The NLRB says that Boeings expansion into South Carolina is punitive and retaliatory because since 1995 the IAMAW has stopped production three times at Boeing's Washington plants. They ignore settled law, both Supreme Court and past NLRB decisions, that companies may take past strikes into consideration when making business decisions to minimize the risk of further disruptions.
Proving that it is clueless about basic economics, and the current state of our economy, the Obama Administration is going after the world's largest aerospace corporation. Boeing is also our largest EXPORTER. It has 155,000 workers and its shares are held by union pension funds among lots and lots of other people.
This current farce is actually symptomatic of the death throes of organized labor. The percentage of PRIVATE sector workers who belong to a union keeps shrinking. Thus the reliance of unions on the NLRB to do their dirty work when persuasion has failed. It also represents the never ending effort of organized labor to try and get around Section 14 (b) of the Taft - Hartley Act. That provision allows states to pass right-to-work laws.
Obama has also virtually guaranteed a Senate that is both Republican and possibly filibuster-proof in 2013. Democrat Senators from right-to-work states are going to have a hard enough time as it is trying to get re-elected in 2012. Obama has compounded their difficulties. Maintaining the economic attractiveness of their states is going to be a major problem if the NLRB action stands.
We've already seen Obama brush aside existing bankruptcy law to screw the secured creditors of GM and Chrysler. Now the NLRB is suing Arizona and South Dakota because they had the gall to amend their constitutions ( by large majorities ) to guarantee secret ballots in unionization elections.
Frankly, who can blame unions like IAMAW and the UAW from seeking to become wards of the state ? They've seen what it has done for the AFT, NEA and AFSCME. Likewise, uncompetitive companies are forever seeking ( and too often getting ) subsidies, tariffs , import quotas and tax breaks.
The NLRB action is just the latest example of Obama sacrificing the economy on the altar of politics.



Reply With Quote
I don't sweat
the other 5% .......................

Bookmarks