Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Obama's NLRB: Screw The Law

Boeing decided it needed a new plant to build the new 787. They decided to build the plant in South Carolina, a right to work state instead of other states that don't have right to work, including their home based state of Washington D.C.. Besides getting a pretty good deal from the South Carolina governments, another reason was to avoid strikes which has hurt Boeing at least 4 times over the years.
Well, the unions cried to Obama's National Labor Relations Board and the NLRB came down hard on Boeing. The NLRB ordered Boeing to ship the some or most of the work to a union shop, even though Boeing never harmed union workers in their union factory in Washington State and other union shops when they decided to build in South Carolina.
From the Charolette Observer: The top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday accused Boeing of union busting and retaliating against its Washington state workers for past strikes by moving to produce its new Dreamliner planes in South Carolina.
Executives of The Boeing Co. vowed to fight the NLRB bid to compel the aeronautics giant to make the next-generation aircraft, which has been dogged by delays, cost overruns and testing mishaps, at its plant in Everett, Wash., instead of at a 584,000-square-foot factory under construction next to Charleston International Airport.

Reactions to the NLRB was swift and harsh: Boeing Executive Vice President Michael Luttig blasted the ruling as "frivolous," said the company will fight it in court and expressed confidence that production of the 787s will begin as scheduled this summer at its new North Charleston plant.
"Boeing has every right under both federal law and its collective bargaining agreement to build additional U.S. production capacity outside of the Puget Sound region," Luttig said.
Rep. Tim Scott, a first-term North Charleston Republican on the House GOP leadership team, accused President Barack Obama of playing politics to appease his pro-labor allies.
"Such heavy-handed tactics on behalf of the president's union supporters are an affront to the people of the Palmetto State who voted overwhelmingly in support of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing workers the right to secret ballots in union elections," Scott said
...
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., delivered a scathing indictment of the NLRB move.
"This is one of the worst examples of unelected bureaucrats doing the bidding of special interest groups that I've ever seen," Graham said. "In this case, the NLRB is doing the bidding of the unions at great cost to South Carolina and our nation's economy."

The NLRB said this: Solomon, NLRB's top lawyer, alleged in his complaint that Boeing's decision to open a nonunion factory in South Carolina was made in retaliation for five strikes at its Seattle-area plants between 1977 and 2008.Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/04/20/2238074/nlrb-tries-to-block-boeings-plant.html#ixzz1K8N3PkNa
So, because a company chose a right to work state over a pro-union state to avoid labor problems now is illegal according to Obama's NLRB. And if they do this, the Gestapo NLRB thinks it can force a company to send work a union plant over a non-union plant. What utter BS.
This is just a big sloppy kiss Obama just gave to the unions. But the reality is that that Boeing will appeal this, all the way through the NLRB appeals and then in the Federal court system where they have the law on their side. This will take years to resolve and Boeing will continue to use the South Carolina plant. And when it gets to the courts, the NLRB and union will be laughed out of court.

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