Boeing vs. the NLRB: A Naked Power Grab by Radical Pro-Unionists
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) contends that President Obama’s chief of staff, Bill Daley, threatened and made coercive statements against Boeing employees.
You haven’t heard about these charges?
Daley was on Boeing’s board of directors when the company unanimously decided to open up a second assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner in Charleston, S.C. The NLRB argues this illegally violated the rights of Boeing’s unionized employees. The complaint against Boeing thus implicates Daley in any supposed wrongdoing — although the mainstream media has avoided mentioning this.
Of course, anyone familiar with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) will tell you that the NLRB’s charges have no merit. Daley would have never got past White House vetting otherwise.
In short, Boeing made a legal business decision that unions opposed, and the NLRB is using this as a pretext to unlawfully expand its power.
Boeing currently builds 787s in unionized Washington state, and its customers love the plane. Demand is so strong, the company needed to build a second assembly line. Boeing decided to locate this second line in South Carolina instead of Washington state.
This was a sound business decision. South Carolina offered Boeing $900 million in tax-incentives, has better tort laws, and is geographically closer to many suppliers. South Carolina is also a right-to-work state with few union members. Building in Charleston dramatically reduces the risk of strikes — a real benefit since the International Association of Machinists (IAM) regularly launches expensive strikes in Washington.
So Boeing decided to build its new plant in South Carolina — and the IAM objected. After a two-year wait, during which Boeing spent $2 billion, the NLRB recently filed a complaint. The NLRB contends that Boeing illegally “transferred work” from Washington in “retaliation” for the IAM’s strikes.
Contrary to the NLRB’s unsupported claims, the government cannot tell companies where they can and cannot create jobs. Even on their own terms, the NLRB’s dubious charges do not pass legal muster.
Boeing’s actions can’t be characterized as a “reprisal” against the union when Boeing is not closing its existing Washington plant or “transferring” work from it. No members of the union are losing their jobs. Boeing is simply creating new production capabilities in a second facility in South Carolina. The NLRB’s own regional director, Richard Ahearn, admitted this. As if this weren’t enough, the union’s collective bargaining agreement expressly states that Boeing can build new assembly lines wherever it chooses.
The NLRB says Boeing CEO Jim McNerney engaged in anti-union activity by stating in an interview that recurring strikes by the union factored into Boeing’s decision. The First Amendment protects Boeing executives’ freedom to say this. After five strikes over the past 35 years, Boeing was confronted with repeated lapses in productivity that hampered its ability to deliver promised products on time. This is an economic reality that Boeing must consider when investing in new facilities.
The law does not prohibit a company from responding to economic realities, or saying that they are doing so. The Supreme Court has ruled that the NLRA permits management to make decisions “essential for the running of a profitable business” and “to reach decisions without fear of later evaluations labeling its conduct an unfair labor practice.”
But under the NLRB’s warped view of the law, all manufacturers who have facilities in heavily unionized states (like Washington) could not expand their operations into right-to-work states (like South Carolina).This interpretation violates the fundamental structure of the NLRA. Congress carefully balanced the interests of both union members and employers. The Act protects workers’ ability to unionize, but it also allows states to implement right-to-work laws so that workers cannot be forced to join unions.
The NLRB is trying to upend that balance. Its interpretation effectively means unionized companies cannot expand in right-to-work states, at least not without serious litigation. The Board wants to force companies to invest in only unionized operations instead of exercising other options.
If the NLRB succeeds it will do serious damage to American workers and the economy. Businesses do not have to make capital investments or create new jobs. They will invest less if the government tells them they cannot take advantage of their best opportunities.
Studies show that unions raise costs, leading unionized firms to invest 15 to 20 percent less in R&D than nonunion firms. As a result, union shops create fewer new jobs. Employment grows 3 to 4 percentage points less a year in unionized firms than nonunion ones. The NLRB’s charges are a guaranteed prescription for even higher unemployment.
Boeing’s General Counsel, Michael Luttig, will testify before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee on May 12 at a hearing on the “Endangered Middle Class.” He will certainly have a lot to say about how the NLRB is endangering the employment prospects of thousands of middle class workers.
The NLRB’s complaint will be heard by an administrative law judge on June 14. Whatever the decision, it is sure to be appealed to the four-member board of the NLRB, which is dominated by radical, pro-union appointees. The worst is Craig Becker, an Obama recess appointee who has argued that the freedom of businesses to invest and make decisions about capital should be limited by the government in order to strengthen unions. If the NLRB finds against Boeing, the company will then appeal the NLRB’s illegitimate actions in federal court. Even one of President Obama’s liberal, empathetic judges would have a hard time upholding the NLRB, given Supreme Court precedent and the complete lack of a legal basis for these claims.
What is really going here is a direct frontal assault against right-to-work states being engineered by an out-of-control federal agency staffed by union activists. Federal law allows states to compete for new investment by implementing labor laws that prohibit workers from being forced to join unions. The NLRB has no authority to threaten business investment and job creation to benefit unions by forcing businesses to expand only in closed shop states.
Congress should amend the National Labor Relations Act to reaffirm its longstanding interpretation that any new investment decisions — such as expanding existing facilities or building new plants — do not constitute an unfair labor practice. This amendment would prevent abusive litigation by an overzealous NLRB and protect companies’ ability to freely make investments that benefit their shareholders, their customers, their employees, and the overall economy.
But, once the new plant is built and a trained workforce proven, work will be transferred to it and finally the Seattle plant will start losing money and be closed. The union knows that. Too bad, so sad. This is the natrual accountability that private sector unions experience. Once you make your member’s services too expensive, the employer must either sell or close, or move to a less expensive enviornment. In this case we are lucky that the friendlier environment is in the U.S. and not India.
All I have to say is ha ha ha ha! This is an excellent way to get rid of unions and the sooner the better! This is shy the Peterbilt plant in Tennessee is mostly shuttered on account of unions while the Peterbilt plant in Texas is running full force and showing a profit!
Ultimately, that could very well happen but not for some time. Living in the Charleston area, I have a bias, of course.
Why don’t unions start their own business for profit
lol
The government, under the present administration, has overstepped its boundaries, when it dictates that Boeing cannot build a plant in South Carolina, which has a right to work law. The Unions hate this law. and will do anything to have the plant built elsewhere. This is a flagrent political move by the NLRB, in order to promote the Union friends of Obama. They are depriving So. Carolina workers of jobs in order to boost Union dues, to benefit the Unions pocketbook. We need to keep this in mind when we vote in November 2012, or else we will be stuck for four more years,of those who are out to dismantle our great country. Its already started , so choose your candidate wisely, and do not fooled by smooth talk again.
Boeing needs to tell the NLRB to go piss up a rope
Indeed. Atlas Shrugged is looking less like a movie, and more like a Documentary every day.
and the useless idiotas of the left wonder why companies move some operations overseas
although this is a nasty fight it is necessary
a line has been drawn in the sand and it is up to us to present our case
this is just another example in the fight against capitalism and collectivism and many in this country are convinced that if it were not for unions the “evil and greedy corporations” would still have children working in the factories, people would be working 20 hrs a day a $.50 an hour, and we would be finding pieces of appendages in our hamburgers
is there a poll anywhere asking union members if they would vote for the choice to contribute their “dues” voluntarily given the chance?
or what about the notion of making the unions pay the legal fees/costs when these frivolous suits get tossed out
we see where all their “dues” go—> they go to the legal departments to launch these scam suits; they go to the purchase of matching t-shirts and posters at the “spontaneous” rallies, and they go to the political cronies that lobby for the cause
sure, workers have the right to strike, they also have the right to get canned
having lost two jobs due to the influence of union cretins, it really breaks me up that they are losing infleunce.
Honestly.
I swear.
Not.
Greetings:
Sometimes, the process is the punishment.
Even if Boeing is successful in overcoming the NLRB in regard to this issue, the threat of ill-founded governmental interference in business activities will be delivered and accepted by companies more inclined to avoidance behaviors. And, if I remember my undergraduate Psychology coursework correctly, avoidance behaviors are the most difficult to extinguish because the subject responds before the noxious stimulus id actually delivered.
Whatever became of all those Titans of Industry. We sure could use a few about now.
Not picking nits, but avoidance behaviors are really rather easy to extinguish. Using differential reinforcement does the job, but they wouldn’t teach you about those in Psych 101.
I’ve been a behavioral specialist for many years. The hardest to extinguish are sexual behaviors, where the payoff (R+) comes so quickly after the offset of the behavior.
Sorry to pic nits, but my entire career was intervention, analysis and training.
Is it realistic to think a bill to amend the act be passed and signed into law? Or are you thinking that this would happen after 2012?
Hopefully Boeing will learn their lesson. Next time move the production to China and the headquarters to Fiji.
Ah, the true voice of the right – screw unions even if you have to screw America in the process.
Ah, the true voice of the Left – protect unions even if you have to screw America in the process.
Two can play this game
The abusive unions have no right not to be screwed
Screwnions
I am not sure who you think is getting the raw end of the deal!! NO one is getting laid off, and they ARE spreading the wealth!! What’s not to like? Oh yeah, the UNIONS are not getting the benefit. IT’s that old entitlement mentality. Now I remember…we saw plenty of that on display in Wisconsin. Who do you think you are? You are entitled to nothing. YOu have put up no money and the unionistas have lost no jobs. Why should the Government have the prerogative to force this on a private company? Just because of greed…by the unions no less. don’t worry…we know how corrupt this process is. It will not go well for those on NLRB politically.
In this article, in several different ways to the same end, von Spakovsky and Sherk confound the decency—or it may be, the unwisdom—which the 1st Am protects, with the natural consequences which can—and, in this set of circumstances and conditions, do—follow use of the right of expression:
Say the guy announces: “Yeah, I shot the bitch.’. While he has the right to so speak, the thing which he has spoken carries import which is quite different from any questions as to whether the 1st Am allows freedom of expression for him to so announce, or no.
Than any casual relationship between unrelated persons, the agreement between the union and the corp. is more like a marriage: If the guy does not tell us that, he’s moving his office because he’s tired of looking out the window and seeing his wife’s car, and in that regard, to his eye, the new location has better scenery, how would we know of his mean-spiritedness—his move may have been a “business decision”?
Our learned authors here, blink the fact that, in these types of relationships—and, where either party is free to first seek a divorce, which would then allow all things and including seeking another consort—there exists the supervening tacit or explicit intention and agreement to “work things out” firstly, through attempts at negotiation, . . . good faith attempts.
I offer for your consideration that, the principal puzzle piece here, is, how such smart designers and engineers and skilled line workers can continue cranking out such a high level of work product, when saddled by an obviously over-paid executive staff who are unutterably open-mouthed in their self-announcements of stupidity, . . .
“With Boeing CEO Jim McNerney’s having stated in an interview that, recurring strikes by the union factored into Boeing’s decision, Boeing involved itself in anti-union activity. The First Amendment protects Boeing executives’ freedom to have said this. In five strikes over the past 35 years, Boeing was confronted with repeated lapses in productivity and which hampered its ability to deliver promised products on time.”.
One might reasonably hope that—as in the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin—in some college class studying work environments, of a decent upbring, or just somewhere along the line, the exec. might have picked up some internal advisement which would have told him of the advisability of sometimes keeping one’s mouth closed, . . .
Oh well, just another blow to America, . . .
Just stating the obvious lesson that companies will learn from the Administration. The Kennedy’s learned it long ago – they don’t have to worry about paying for the bad policies of their elected family members.
Hey Joseph I am amused that you take offense at us here calling a spade a spade. I worked for Lockheed Missiles and Space in 1984 in Sunnyvale, CA. I had an aircraft power supply on my desk since my job title was HARDWARE ENGINEER. Get that? Read those two words carefully. So I wanted to carry the unit to an assembly area to check on something, and started on my way down the hallway. I was new on the job so this very very self important guy – a nonwhite guy I had never seen – accosted me and very angrily dressed me down, and very thuggishly threatened me (not with violence) if I continued on my way. It still came off as THUGGISH — like why did he not introduce himself and nicely ask the white guy if he knows about about “work rules”. Turns out this guy was a “shop steward”, and I was violating rules providing that only union guys can transport pieces of product. So I, as HARDWARE ENGINEER, caused, by actually handling HARDWARE, a mental meltdown in one of these oh-so-rational union thugs. This is what has happened to Detroit. Slam down operational efficiency 50 percent by force of union work rules, and other “benefits” and you get Nissan setting up shop in TN, without this 50% penalty — such as GM has across town at Spring Hill and you have what you have. That is, severely crippled American iconic corporations, and Boeing is next in line thank you.
South Carolina isn’t in the USA? What are you so against people in SC having jobs? Are only people from approved states allowed to have jobs in your world?
The left has been trying to destroy the US auto industry for years, and the UAW union keeps voting for the left. Now there is lefty common sense for you!
Unions, hell. This is a nice term applied to people who don’t have the guts to negotiate a salary with their employer based on their own performance, and who think they can do better for themselves by hiring smarter people to negotiate a price for them as if they were sheep otherwise heading to a slaughter. Destroy America, hell. You UNION boys are so completely gutless that you let communists lead you around by the nose and call you ‘useful idiots’.
All the legal costs for Boeing to fight this will be added as a negative to the bottom line. End result, Less money for improvements, Delays in provide the planes, lost orders. The only ones to make out are the Unions, The lawyers and the nlrb. The rest of us will pay the price eventually.
I saw a similar case in Construction in the 80′s. The Canadian company I worked for had to create 3 holding companies – the overall CAN one, then one each in the US and Canada. Each of the country ones could have a Union construction firm below it and a non-union firm. Probably increased overall overhead by 3 to 5% but it allowed the company to participate in both markets.
The Auto companies played nice with the UAW, who then basically killed them. Contrast that with CAT who has just been brutal in its fight with the Unions. I think Boeing will be forced to create a joint venture and possibly locate all future production offshore, our corporate tax structure also is a strong bias against building here.
I hope not. I hope this company uses it’s might to utterly crush this union and destroys the NLRB. I’m getting so sick of hearing stories like this. It is utterly insane. To force a people to follow laws that the government flaunts!
Obama jumped to the podium yesterday and read that businesses need to step up and hire more people. WHAT! You see articles like this and you see the amount of money this place I work at spends on training and training to be ready for the FED OSHA Gestapo. No wonder Obama’s remarks fall on deaf teleprompters.
Boeing should spin off a separate company to buy the SC plant and build the 787 under license. Then flip the bird to the union.
You all forgot about the $36 billion contract for Boeing in IL.
Shall we wager on Obama withdrawing his gift, to the unions, I mean Boeing if they defend their decision.
Have you all forgot who is our president and the way he works?
The government may have to re-examine that tanker deal.
Also other government contracts may be in danger.
I have a dumb question, if a union worker would be laid off, does the union pick up the tab for their unemployment or is it the state?
i said it was a dumb question.
maybe the s carolina non union workers need to file a suit against the nlra for penalizing them for not being union
To the best of my knowledge if a private union worker is laid off unemployment is paid by the state.
Employers pay unemployment insurance via a tax levied by the state. Like Social Security, this fund can end up being drained, and the taxpayer gets to pick up the slack.
Maybe this is the event that will finally make an American company, Boeing, stand up to Gangster Government and the rule of thuggery. Boeing should state clearly that they will not obey a clearly unconstitional order from the NLRB. If the NLRB persists, it’s up to the GOP House to defund the Board. It will never stop until someone plays hardball.
If Boeing moved out of the states to some other country, will the NLRB try to prevent them? The actions of unions are too much like communism to suit me. Look at the signs they carried on May Day.
I agree that what the NLRB is doing is appalling, but so was the takeover of 2/3 of the auto industry, among other depredations.
Keep in mind that big business has been colluding wit big government fo some time, and Obama has accellerated and expanded the practice. Big business relies on taxpeyer-funded projects to a greater degree than ever, and it seems to like this. I hope they start having second thoughts about this corrupt relationship because of the abuses of the current admininstration.
I have a weird feeling about this. If a union can complain successfully about a business moving production out of state, can the *state* complain the same way, about the loss of tax revenue? We’ve been bleeding employers here in California for the last decade or two, and I’ve often said that the dream of state lawmakers here is a tax on the revenue of businesses that *used* to be in California, and moved elsewhere. If they could tax businesses in other states, because they moved out of ours, they’d be in good shape. And trust me, they’d like to.
May I tie two seemingly “unrelated” things to each other.
If you read the article from Hot Air below, you will find that the leftists were perfectly willing to lie, cheat, steal, falsify evidence…in order to rip off America (and the West) in order to advance the hoax of global warming.
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/05/12/former-alarmist-scientist-says-anthropogenic-global-warming-agw-based-in-false-science/
To understand how “in your face” leftism has become…we don’t prosecute DOJ claims against anyone who violates the civil rights of a certain skin color in this country, our leaders at the TOP OF THE DEMOCRATIC TICKET were at the forefront of stealing money based on the global warming hoax, we sue our own states for trying to protect their borders, we bypass creditors to give preferences to unions…why is it ANY surprise that we would sue a private company for exercising sound business judgement.
We are at war with leftism. They call us “enemies” on Spanish radio.
Bitter clingers. Teabaggers. The arrogant tell us to drive a different car if we don’t like the rising gas prices.
Do you like having your nose rubbed in it any greater than it is being rubbed in it now?
YOUR mass communications are a propaganda vehicle, pure and simple.
YOUR DOJ hates your guts.
Why is this surprising to anyone? They do not believe in YOUR Constitution, they really don’t.
And…they don’t believe there is a damn thing you can do about any of it.
vitriol and sagacity..cfb I shall not ask” for whom the bell tolls….”.tis me !
And then there’s all the NON JOBS that Unions FORCE employers to fund. An example at the new World Trade Center site was quoted on Fox yesterday. Seems the Unions insist on a Senior Engineer be appointed for each Crane thats being used at a cost of between $6-800,0000 p.a. per MAN but the Crane manufacturers already supply a fully trained Engineer with each Crane so this position is a classic NON JOB along with all the UNION representatives who the employers have to pay but who work solely on UNION business. Just two of the many SCAMS Unions foist on employers all the time, of course with the Government the Union has a WILLING victim because after all a huge percentage of Government Jobs are NON JOBS already without coercion from Unions.
If this move to Carolina is blocked by the government, maybe Boeing will chose to move this work to a more business friendly foreign nation thus helping the current administration to “spread the wealth”.
The attack has to be threefold: First, DeMint and SC Gay Senator have to hold up everything in the Senate until the NLRB is defunded by the house and approved in the Senate. No appointments, no money. Hook it to the debt ceiling.
Next, South Carolina needs to file suit in State court vs the NLRB and its individual members. It will get moved to Federal court but it will hold everything up until the NLRB is restricted by Congress.
Boeing needs to announce its new lines for 737Neo will be either in the South or in another country…Canada, Mexico or even China. The 767 Tanker is not yet commenced so could well move to other facilities. Their headquarter should move to Dallas or offshore as another message to the socialists.
In January 2013 the NLRB should permanently disappear along with much of the FCC and EPA.
Canuck,
…AND the FED, perhaps the biggest enemy to our recovery. If only I could print money whenever I needed to pay a bill. Our money is slowly becoming not worth, literally, the ‘paper’ on which it’s printed.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms, CA
Take the NRLB and Trumpka to the Supreme court and burn their arces. They do not have the strength nor the authority to dictate to who can and cannot move freely in the USA, to include their businesses. Trumpka should be reminded that he is nothing without the unions and he is really alienating the public against unions as a whole
If the NLRB stops Boeing from opening their plant in South Carolina and makes Boeing stay in Washington state. Our freedoms, as little we now have left will be crushed forever. Again Obama is thrashing the US Constitution if he allows the NLRB to stop this Boeing move. We already have police in sanctuary cities choosing what laws they will enforce and what laws they have decided not to enforce. We now have a raCIST DOJ eric holder picking and choosing what laws he will enforce and not to enforce, no matter what our laws say or the US Constitution says. Then we have lost the rule of law to a small group of anarchist running our country not the people. If this is the case then we should all be able to pick and chose what laws we want to follow. So keep your powder dry and your weapon of protection close to you, and pray to GOD!
Boeing should ignore the NLRB and say “See you in court.”
The White House should be privately told what will come out if it ever gets to court!
Then the issue will quietly go away and South Carolina will get their factory!
Maybe Boeing should consider moving their HQ from Chicago to Florida! We are a “right to work” no income tax state.
“Daley would have never got past White House vetting otherwise.”
Oh, please! This White House is so full of radicals and new left misfits that Stalin would be on the guest list for White House dinner parties if he were still alive. Vetting is not their strong suit.
South Carolina should just declare that the NLRB has no authority to compel them to do anything and just ignore them. Let the NLRB go to court and try to make their case.
Boeing should threaten Obama, if they can’t open their plant in SC, then they’ll move the whole company out of US! IBM going to do that latter this year.
I suggest Boeing take the NLRB to court (with a “loser pays” clause) with the following as part of the suit:
1) Since the NLRB is a taxpayer funded entity, and
2) Since the Members of the NLRB are paid by the taxpayers, and
3) Since it will cost taxpayers for the Federal attorneys and all the expenses entailed in investigating and litigating this suit from the DoJ,and
4) Since a lawsuit from the Fed must have been approved at the highest levels at the DoJ (also all paid from taxpayer funds,)and
5) Since we feel that this is a retaliatory and frivolous lawsuit:
The Court order that, should Plaintiff (Boeing) prevail, no taxpayer funds get used to pay the “loser Pays” clause, and that each and every person involved from the Government (losing) side have their wages garnished, and all their assets frozen and/or liquidated until the total court expense of the winning side has been paid.
the more i watch this bunch of crooks and crim’s, the more i appreciate the wisdom of those who wrote our DoI, constitution and all those other brilliant doc’s.
odumbo must really be confident of a win next year to keep rubbing the American peoples’ nose in his commie crap. my dad is retired union and he couldn’t believe what these fools are trying to pull off here. o & co. arrogant? yeah. stupid? yeah, that too, in spades.
that little liar in chief has something sinister up his sleeve. my gut feeling says union election corruption. whatever the little freak (or should we say his boss) has in mind, it won’t be pretty. guess ole Thomas J. was right about every so oft some of us having to step up to the plate and demonstrate why we remain free.