Republicans are up in arms over an official complaint by the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel against aerospace giant Boeing for its decision to open a new plant in South Carolina — a right-to-work state — instead of expanding its facilities in Puget Sound, Wash. And they want to make sure President Obama hears them loud and clear.
At a press conference today at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, GOP senators joined South Carolina governor Nikki Haley (R.) in denouncing the general counsel’s actions and calling on the president to speak out on the matter. “This goes against everything we know our American economy to be,” Haley said. “For the president not to weigh in on this and not to say that this is going to be harmful is a problem.”
Advertisement
The NLRB complaint alleges that Boeing’s decision constitutes illegal “retaliation” against a machinist union in Washington State. But Haley, along with South Carolina senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint, is outraged and sees the decision as a threat to her state’s economy. “This is personal,” Haley said. “When you go after a corporate citizen in South Carolina, it is personal to me.”
Graham decried the NLRB’s “unbelievable attack” on Boeing, which, he said, is merely seeking out the best environment in which to do business. “It’s not like Boeing just picked up and came to South Carolina without any discussions,” he said. “This was a long, hard decision by the Boeing company, and they made a good business decision after a lot negotiations with many people. . . . Under the law, they have the right to do this.”
Boeing has already invested about $2 billion in the South Carolina plant, and now faces millions more in legal fees as a result of the NLRB complaint. The company has pointed out that no jobs or benefits have been cut in their original Puget Sound plant. In fact, more than 2,000 new positions have been created there since the decision to place the new plant in South Carolina.
DeMint called it “absurd” that in a country like the United States — a beacon of free enterprise — an unaccountable, unelected government agency could potentially undermine thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment. “This is something you would expect in a Third World country,” he said. “It is thuggery at its best, and we cannot stand for it here in this country.” He argued that the NLRB likely knew full it could not possibly win with such a spurious argument, but was simply trying to raise the cost (i.e. legal fees) for other companies who might follow in Boeing’s footsteps.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), a former governor, said concern over the NLRB’s overreach extended well beyond South Carolina, which is why he is drafting legislation — dubbed “The Right to Work Protection Act” — to clarify existing law to not only forestall the NLRB’s pending action against Boeing but also to prevent any similar attempts against other companies. Alexander expects significant bipartisan support.
Another important aspect of the bill would protect an employer’s free-speech right to “have honest negotiations without fear that comments will be used as evidence in an anti-union-discrimination case.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who is helping to draft the legislation, posed several pointed questions to the president: “Mr. President, do you have an enemies list? Is this decision based on the fact that South Carolina is a Republican state, has two Republican senators? Is this decision based on the fact that South Carolina is a right-to-work state? Are they on your enemies list?” He warned of the precedent that would be set by allowing “the full power and bully nature of government” to influence where companies do business.
Above all, Graham said, the most blatant evidence as to the absurdity of the board’s attack on Boeing was the fact that White House chief of staff Bill Daley served on Boeing’s board and participated in the unanimous vote to open the plant in South Carolina. “This makes no sense,” Graham said. “Would they hire someone who busts unions at the White House?”
Not only that, but in March 2011, Obama tapped Boeing CEO Jim McNerney to head the President’s Export Council, created to facilitate the president’s goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years. “Just stand up for your own people, if nothing else,” Graham said.
Haley took a more aggressive tack, urging Obama to overhaul his attitude toward the business community. “All he’s doing right now is creating best friends with every other country in the world — they are loving him right now — because he is forcing business to go out of our country and he is keeping business from coming in,” she said. “We need him to love this country, we need him to understand what he’s doing to this country. He absolutely owes the American public a response.”
Enemies list? Just look at the speech by "The One" in El Paso and the denial of the funds that Gov. Perry requested from FEMA and that will give you a real good clue.
How is it we have made it unconstitutional to discriminate in employment based on race, creed, color, religion, etc. but not on the basis of organizational membership? Union membership does not convey special fitness for work, like a doctor's board license does. And this insistence on union membership in a given shop seems to deny the privileges and immunities of some citizens, e.g. non-union members, to work. That would seem to violate the 14th Amendment.
Perhaps Boeing should move its Dreamliner operation to Mexico. Pit the illegals (who might go back where they are legal) against the unions. Or South Carolina could assist in the formation of a new business that subcontracts to Boeing for building this airplane. There must be an option that takes this out of the NRLB's hands.
This is without a doubt the most egregious thing any U.S. Administration has attempted in my lifetime. It's ripped from the pages of Atlas Shrugged. If a stop is not put to this immediately, Obama should be impeached for allowing it to go on. If I ran Boeing, I would threaten to move my entire Washington State operation to British Columbia.
"...You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
-I get the impression Ms. Rand was thinking about the National Labor Relations Act when she wrote this.
Yes, I suppose that closing the whole megillah down and moving to Mexico or China was what the NLRB really is after. 'Cause that is what they are going to get!
Let the NLRB have its' way and when Boeing, who answers not to them, but the share holders, moves 10 or 15 thousand jobs outside the U.S., what will they say then? Perhaps the dictator in chief will tell them they don't have the right to move where they are not blackmailed by union goons including but not limited to the NLRB
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a letter from some professor purporting to show that the NLRB was right in this matter because "Boeing broke the law." The "law" here is the provision in the National Labor Relations Act that employers may not retaliate against workers for their pro-union activities. The fact that an NLRB functionary can turn that language into a case against Boeing, which has not made any existing worker worse off by choosing to invest in production elsewhere just shows how absurdly vague the NLRA's language is.
It is time for those who oppose the politicization of investment decisions to mount a campaign to repeal the NLRA. If anyone who just believes in the rule of law rather than rule by the whims of bureaucrats wants to join, so much the better.
be very scared of obama and his socialist minions. they want to tell american corporations how/where/when/why to do business, although obama has never done anything but pursue his own self-aggrandizement. america was made great by business visionaries, not by self-satisfied and narcissistic faux dictators. you won't win, obama, you bum. the american people reject you and your progressive idiocy. see what happens to you and your party in 2012, dear leader....
Follow
