Wonder if the NLRB is gonna let this happen. Remember what they did to Boeing when they moved their production plant. I can’t see them (NLRB) letting this stand without some kind of hassle.
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The NLRB will have a hard time stepping into the middle of this one, since Caterpillar is moving production from Canada and Japan to the United States. If it was from Illinois to Georgia, that'd be another story (and a pretty dark one at that..) Once those two other plants are up and running, Caterpillar can then increase production at those two facilities and decrease work in Illinois again without hassle, as it is simply 'balancing the workload' between plants.
I'm sure that the NLRB is fuming over this, of course, and I'll expect some job actions by big labor against Caterpillar while these two plants are under construction to try to strong arm the company into labor concessions and work guarantees for the Illinois factory with the NLRB's support.
In the long run, we need to remember that Obama's already got his campaign war chest, strangling the economy coming into the fall elections will serve to starve his opposition from being able to amass money as well. Right now, they're happy as clams to have massive amounts of money being spent by Romney to try to float his way to the nomination, and wish that he had stronger competition to drain even more money away from the eventual Republican nominee.