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Title: Boeing Trieds To Screw Working Man With End Run Around Law - NLRB Says "BUSTED!!!"
Source:
NY Times
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/business/21boeing.html?_r=2
Published: Apr 23, 2011
Author: Steven Greenhouse
Post Date: 2011-04-23 23:57:40 by war
Keywords: None
Views: 2005
Comments: 7
In what may be the strongest signal yet of the new pro-labor orientation of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama, the agency filed a complaint Wednesday seeking to force Boeing to bring an airplane production line back to its unionized facilities in Washington State instead of moving the work to a nonunion plant in South Carolina. In its complaint, the labor board said that Boeing’s decision to transfer a second production line for its new 787 Dreamliner passenger plane to South Carolina was motivated by an unlawful desire to retaliate against union workers for their past strikes in Washington and to discourage future strikes. The agency’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said it was illegal for companies to take actions in retaliation against workers for exercising the right to strike. Although manufacturers have long moved plants to nonunion states, the board noted that Boeing officials had, in internal documents and news interviews, specifically cited the strikes and potential future strikes as a reason for their 2009 decision to expand in South Carolina. Boeing said it would “vigorously contest” the labor board’s complaint. “This claim is legally frivolous and represents a radical departure from both N.L.R.B. and Supreme Court precedent,” said J. Michael Luttig, a Boeing executive vice president and its general counsel. “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.” It is highly unusual for the federal government to seek to reverse a corporate decision as important as the location of plant. But ever since a Democratic majority took control of the five-member board after Mr. Obama’s election, the board has signaled that it would seek to adopt a more liberal, pro-union tilt after years of pro-employer decisions under President Bush. Although the board has not yet issued many major decisions reversing Bush-era policies, it has proposed requiring private sector employers to post a notice about workers’ right to unionize, and Mr. Solomon has begun moving more aggressively to win reinstatement of union supporters fired illegally by management during unionization drives. In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Solomon said: “A worker’s right to strike is a fundamental right guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. We also recognize the rights of employers to make business decisions based on their economic interests, but they must do so within the law.” South Carolina’s two senators, both Republicans, Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, denounced the board’s move. “This is nothing more than a political favor for the unions who are supporting President Obama’s re-election campaign,” Mr. DeMint said. The labor board said that in 2007, Boeing announced plans to create a second production line that would make three 787 Dreamliner planes a month in the Puget Sound area to address a growing backlog of orders. That was to be in addition to a line already making seven Dreamliners a month there. In October 2009, Boeing said it would locate its second line at a new, nonunion plant in South Carolina. The N.L.R.B. asserted that on numerous occasions Boeing officials had communicated an unlawful motive for transferring the production line, including an interview with The Seattle Times in which a Boeing executive said, “The overriding factor was not the business climate. And it was not the wages we’re paying today. It was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years.” Mr. Solomon brought the complaint after a union representing many of Boeing’s Washington workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, complained that Boeing had decided to move production to South Carolina largely in retaliation for a 58-day strike in 2008. “Boeing’s decision to build a 787 assembly line in South Carolina sent a message that Boeing workers would suffer financial harm for exercising their collective bargaining rights,” said the union’s vice president, Rich Michalski. Mr. Solomon said that if he failed to settle the dispute, an administrative judge would begin hearing the case on June 14 in Seattle. Mr. Solomon said he was not seeking to close the South Carolina factory or prohibit Boeing from assembling planes there. Boeing criticized the timing of the N.L.R.B.’s complaint, saying it came when construction of the factory in North Charleston, S.C., was nearly complete and after 1,000 employees had already been hired there. Boeing said on Wednesday that none of the production jobs in South Carolina had come at the expense of jobs in Washington. It noted that its unionized employment in the Puget Sound area had increased by 2,000 since it announced its decision to expand in South Carolina. The company also said it had decided to expand in South Carolina in part to protect business continuity and to reduce the damage to its finances and reputation from future work stoppages. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: April 22, 2011 An article on Thursday about a National Labor Relations Board complaint seeking to prevent Boeing from moving some airplane production to a nonunion plant in South Carolina misstated the status of a rule to require private sector employers to post a notice about workers’ right to unionize. An N.L.R.B. proposal for such a rule is pending; it has not been made final.
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#1. To: All (#0)
SC doesn't care about the working man.
America...My Kind Of Place...
Do you live there? I have family there. They like SC.
I have family there. They like SC. No. I'm just a tad north of there. When I drive to FL, it's one of the states that I usually stop to piss in. Or maybe it's to buy fireworks. I can never remember...
America...My Kind Of Place...
Recently, careful clinical trials have shown Ginkgo to be ineffective in treating dementia or preventing the onset of Alzheimer's Disease.
Helpful hint, thanks!!! Right now I am staying up to wait for one of the kids...can't remember which one it is I'm supposed to be waiting for and I'm afraid to wake up the Missus to ask...I'm going to bed when the first one gets home and hoping that it's the right one...
America...My Kind Of Place...
WTF are you talking about, shit-for-brains? The "working men" voted out the union gangsters themselves, my usefully idiotic amigo. That's against the law? Not in SC it's not, you ignorant stooge. Of course, you drones and y'alls' Dear Leader Barry thinks the law is whatever he wants it to be. Not yet comrade, not yet. By Dominic Gates Workers at Boeing's 787 fuselage assembly plant in Charleston, S.C. have decisively voted to get rid of the Machinists union as their bargaining representative with the company. The vote was 199 for decertification of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union against 68 for retaining it. Workers at Boeing's recently acquired plant in Charleston, S.C., overwhelmingly voted to decertify the Machinists union. The vote means that Boeing Charleston becomes a non-union plant. It will compete with Boeing Everett, an IAM stronghold, to be the site of a second 787 Dreamliner assembly line. A decision on that site selection is expected by year end. Boeing spokesman Tim Healy said the company is pleased with the outcome. "Boeing Charleston can now move forward to focus on excellence and meeting commitments on the 787 program," Healy said in a statement. The vote ends the IAM's role in Charleston a little less than two years after workers there voted to accept the union when it was run by 787 supplier Vought Aircraft. Boeing bought out Vought in July, terminating the union contract and opening the door to the decertification vote. The election procedures include a seven-day waiting period for potential objections before the results are certified by the National Labor Relations Board.
Yep...in places like SC where up to a couple of decades ago jobs were primarily agrarian, they haven't gotten it yet that a multi-billion dollar a year company can REALLY screw them over. They will... Be careful what you ask for... You gonna take a-them he-yah wage cuts, boy, and you gonna like 'em...ya he-yah?
America...My Kind Of Place...
Although manufacturers have long moved plants to nonunion states, the board noted that Boeing officials had, in internal documents and news interviews, specifically cited the strikes and potential future strikes as a reason for their 2009 decision to expand in South Carolina.
#2. To: war (#1)
SC doesn't care about the working man.
#3. To: We The People (#2)
Do you live there?
#4. To: war (#3)
#5. To: We The People (#4)
(Edited)
#6. To: war (#0)
Boeing Trieds To Screw Working Man With End Run Around Law
Originally published September 10, 2009 at 3:12 PM | Page modified September 11, 2009 at 9:11 AM Workers at Boeing's Charleston plant vote out union
Seattle Times aerospace reporter
#7. To: Happy Quanzaa (#6)
(Edited)
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