Posted on 04/25/2011 8:41:05 AM PDT by 92nina
The National Labor Relations Board has issued a complaint against the Boeing Company on the grounds that the company’s relocation of its second airplane production line was motivated by discrimination toward union workers. If the NLRB’s case succeeds in federal court, it will set a precedent for union control of virtually every major business decision by American corporations.
Prior to October 2009, Boeing had planned to expand its production capabilities with an additional facility in the state of Washington. In recent years, the company had suffered billions in lost revenue and uncertainty of future orders due to multiple extended strikes orchestrated by the International Association of Machinists. Although it was not legally obligated to do so, Boeing invited IAM to the table in a bid to preserve their plans for local expansion without danger of future union disruption. Negotiations broke down upon union demands for Boeing neutrality in nationwide IAM campaigns and for all of the company’s future commercial airline manufacture to be located in Puget Sound. Having come to an impasse, Boeing subsequently decided to base its second production line in North Charleston, South Carolina (a Right-to-Work state).
In March 2010, the IAM filed a charge of “unfair labor practices” with the NLRB, the meat of their argument being that Boeing illegally changed factory locations out of animus against the union. On April 20th of this year, the NLRB published its own complaint against Boeing, citing several so-called “incidents” demonstrating the company’s bias. Three of them are merely newspaper reports, while only two are intramural documents and quotations...
(Excerpt) Read more at workerfreedom.org ...
Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at at Digg and at Reddit and in Delicious and Stumbleupon
The Obama Administration is doing much more than this to support his union supporters in Washington State. There's also the issue with the KC-45 Air Force Tanker. The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) partnered with Northrop Grumman to win the KC-45 contract in 2008. EADS planed to build the tanker and other EADS aircraft in Mobile, AL.
Could the Air Force Contract Cost European Jobs?
Spiegel Online, By Dinah Deckstein, Cordula Meyer and Gabor Steingart, 03/10/2008
The forerunner of the trans-Atlantic shift is the EADS research and development center in Mobile, Alabama. Roughly 90 US engineers are already engaged in research for the European plane maker. The current plans call for the tanker version of Airbus's successful A330 model to be assembled in Mobile, where Northrop Grumman, the company's US joint venture partner, will install the electronic systems. But the plans go even further than that.In late January, not long before the US Department of Defense awarded the contract to EADS, Airbus CEO Thomas Enders paid a visit to Alabama to lay additional bait. Should the Airbus and Northrop Grumman joint venture win the Air Force contract, he said, Airbus would also assemble cargo versions of the A330 in Mobile in the future.But this doesn't necessarily mean that Airbus will stop there. Once production has gotten successfully underway in Mobile, this provincial city could conceivably become Airbus' fourth-largest assembly site for passenger aircraft, next to Hamburg, Toulouse and Tianjin, China. "There are no such plans at present," says and EADS spokesman. Not yet, that is.
Obama canceled that contract as soon as he was in office. That screwed Mobile, AL out of a lot of jobs. Earlier this year, the KC-45 contract was awarded to Boeing (Washington State).
Boeing wins $35 billion Air Force refueling tanker contract
By AUBREY COHEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF, February 23, 2011
Boeing won the U.S. Air Force's $35 billion contract to build 179 aerial refueling tankers, Pentagon and Air Force officials announced Thursday.
The award starts with a $3.5 billion contract for tanker engineering and manufacturing development to deliver the first 18 of what are now called "KC-46A" tankers by 2017.
Boeing's 767-based NewGen Tanker competed against EADS North America's Airbus A330-based KC-45 tanker in the Air Force's third try at starting to replace Eisenhower-era Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers.
Northrop Grumman pulled out of the latest contest, saying the Air Force's criteria favored Boeing's smaller plane. But EADS North America said it could offer a better price, despite the size difference, because it no longer had Northrop's need for profit, Airbus is producing A330s at a higher rate than Boeing is building 767s, lowering costs, and existing A330-based tankers and refueling systems are closer to KC-45 than existing 767-based tankers and systems are to NewGen, meaning less development risk.
Analysts gave EADS the edge in recent weeks, after release of battlefield assessments of the two tankers reportedly showed a big advantage for the KC-45. The Air Force sent the assessments to both bidders accidentally, at first, and then shared the data again after learning that an EADS employee inadvertently looked at the Boeing information.
Then Boeing announced the plans for the Charleston, SC plant. Boeing planned to produce several products in SC. This was followed by the NLRB ruling.
NLRB files complaint against Boeing over S.C. plant
Charleston Regional Business Journal, By Matt Tomsic, April 25, 2011
The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint Wednesday, calling for Boeing to open a second 787 final assembly line in Washington state to remedy what it calls an illegal transfer of work to non-union facilities in North Charleston.
Boeing is building a multi-million dollar facility near Charleston International Airport to complement its first final assembly line in the Seattle area.
The board is pursuing an order to require Boeing to maintain a second assembly line in Washington state, though the complaint does not ask for the line in South Carolina to be closed, according to a news release from the NLRB.
“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 a statement emailed from his office. “In this case, the (National Labor Relations Board) is doing the bidding of the unions at great cost to South Carolina and our nation’s economy.”
The plot gets thicker! Obama has been making recess appointment to the NLRB which he knows will not be confirmed by the Senate!!
Obama admits to favoring Big Labor
The Daily Caller, By Katie Gage, Published: 6:07 PM 09/16/2010
The Obama administration inserted former American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) attorney Craig Becker into the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after Beck was rejected by the US Senate. Considering that he has refused to recuse himself on decisions the NLRB makes affecting his former employers and Big Labor friends, Becker’s credibility is in serious question, while his bias is not.
Secondly, in a recent report to the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee, the Obama administration claimed that organizing a union in America is difficult and that that difficulty constitutes a human rights offense. The audacity of this claim is bad enough, but for our own government to make it on an international level is a perfect example of the great lengths to which the president will go to draw attention to Big Labor’s demands.
Obama is screwing the 'Right To Work' Red State South!! With an 'In you face' attitude, he is pulling every stunt in the book to support his union buddies!
And this story is not getting near enough coverage in the media!
ping!
Quite honestly, even if Boeing doesn’t like the union, they should be able to move their plants wherever the hell they want.
Special ping to some South Carolina FReepers...
The rest of us just need to survive and position ourselves for rebuilding...
They are hurrying in case Obama doesn’t get re-elected. They are stealing our country while they can.
This a fundamental communism vs. property rights issue. The owners of Boeing, the stockholders, have the right to move their property, Boeing Co., wherever they desire. The communists want to control the property for the sake of the ‘stakeholders’, i.e., the crooked unions and the corrupt ‘rat politicians they fund.
Ship jobs overseas to China *crickets chirping*
Sending jobs to a “right to work” state, then that’s when they care.
Sounds like the individuals who make up the NLRB need to be added to a target list, as a priority target!
How does one "illegally" change a location? What law says you can't move your business? Would such a law even be constitutional?
I’m not a Constitutional lawyer or even a scholar, but my layman’s guess is it would not be. The NLRB has no authority to regulate interstate commerce, which in essence is what they are doing. I can find words in the Constitution to the effect that Congress has that authority, but it makes no mention of the National Labor Relations Board. I can find no words in there that even mention it.
He's probably more giddy over this than all the pretty eggs he found yesterday.
Ellis Wyatt is going on strike!
Would Obama be as concerned about Boeing’s move if they were moving to Brazil or Mexico?
You’re right on, further...Do Liberals care more about Right-to-Work laws or minimum wage laws? In China, the wages definitely do not have a floor. In a Right-to-Work state, every group would fall like a ton of bricks on any private firm paying less than the minimum. So what is more important to the Left?
Boeing should take this straight to the federal courts...quickly, before the Supreme Court majority changes. This is gross cronyism and bribery, on a par with Warren G. Harding’s Teapot Dome Scandal.
Obama better flee the country after next year’s election, particularly if someone with principles is elected.
ping
“the IAM filed a charge of ‘unfair labor practices’ with the NLRB, the meat of their argument being that Boeing illegally changed factory locations out of animus against the union.”
Now simply moving to a particular state is ipso facto “unfair”? I want to be surprised, but can’t.
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