The aerospace industry is one of America’s last significant competitive industrial sectors. Boeing is a major player in that industry, competing with state-supported enterprises such as Europe’s EADS, Canada’s Bombardier, and Brazil’s Embraer.
Boeing, as most of you know, is rolling out the 787 Dreamliner, in direct competition with Airbus’ A380. In a bid to keep costs down, and remain competitive, Seattle-based Boeing decided to open a new plant for its 787 production in South Carolina, a right to work state. The company promised that this would not affect jobs at home, since existing airframes would remain in production.
Which is where the NRLB stepped in, in effect saying, you can’t do that. Make smart business decisions. In order to remain competitive with state-supported enterprises. And create new jobs.
The National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that it was dropping its politically charged case against Boeing, in which it had accused the company of violating federal labor law by opening a new aircraft production plant in South Carolina instead of Washington State.
The labor board’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said he had decided to end the case after the union that represents 31,000 Boeing workers in Washington urged the board to withdraw it. That union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, had originally asked the board to file the case, but changed its mind after striking a deal with Boeing last week to raise wages and expand jet production in Washington.
The political conflagration ignited by the case will not be extinguished so easily.
No, I should think not.
The NRLB was intended to be a neutral broker between labor and industry. It opened this complaint against Boeing at the behest of the machinist union, and dropped the complaint at the union’s request, after the union exacted wage raises and unusual security guarantees.
Thus, neutrality.
Because it lacks any external referent against which to calibrate a judgement of position, the relativist point of view says that “neutral” equals those who agree with your own position.
Leftists are all relativists. Q.E.D.
That may be what it’s charter says, but if you think that’s why it was actually established I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Hey, that’s my bridge you’re trying to sell!
Makes you wonder if Boeing told the Union:”Drop it or we leave for Canada. Calgary’s not as warm as Seattle…”
If Boeing left Washington it would serve them right..
Oh here’s another thing:
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/47767#comments This is concerning Navy Biofuels…
This is only new that the NRLB got involved. PW has been trying to close a plant in CT for awhile. They wanted to close their unprofitable Cheshire plant and the unions got involved, lawyers, courts, nasty business. I was kind of stunned that a corporation was going to be told “NO, you CANNOT close your plant”. Eventually there was some agreement between PW and the Machinists Union, but I see two big issues that are destroying our country: Unions and Corporations outsourcing to other countries. PW is moving some of their stuff to GA, but some of it will go off shore as well. The off shore stuff pisses me off, but I don’t think Unions have a right to tell a company where they can do business.
They aren’t two issues. Companies off shore in part because of the high cost of US labor caused by union monopolies.
Break Big Labor’s monopoly and you’ll see a lot less off shoring. Yes, workers will still have to compete with the rest of the world, on either price or value, but that will benefit everyone.
Intersting. Can you explain to me how Big Labor has a monopoly on private industry when opnly about 8% of the private industry is unionised? How is it possible that these 8% can cause the massive levels of outsourcing? The high cost of labor can not be the sole source behind the outsourcing of jobs. Factories can be run with a fraction of the staff it used to take. The more likely explanation is the desire to maximise profits at the expense of people who work for a living.
Outsourcing could be stopped pretty easily – anything that is imported from a low wage country has a tariff imposed on it that will make up the difference in wages from place like China, India, etc, which are artificially low, and the living wages paid in this country and other western countries. The alternative is an extreme drop in living standards in this country. I don’t think anyone here wants to see that, nor the political and societal unrest that would result.
Look at Germany – they have a federal policy to keep high wage and skilled jobs in the country. Japan does the same. This country needs to take a serious look at similiar industrial policies. I doubt either of the political parties would have the guts to do so.
Germany and Japan may have build highly developed economies in the past few decades but their current economic growth has been stagnant for many years. Unions in Japan drove the job security and benefits guarantees too high to remain affordable when businesses make bad decisions (as all human organizations do).
Some sectors like trucking are key to a lot of businesses. When unionized truckers will beat up and attempt to kill non-union truckers, they can drive up their wages. That makes everything shipped by truck a lot more expensive (and that’s most business materials).
Unions create a labor aristocracy where union workers keep wages high and the unemployed out. One frequent effect is that young workers without experience have a harder time being profitable enough to hire (huge youth unemployment rates in the EU) and minorities get discriminated against (no incentive to choose the most efficient workers).
Collective bargaining creates that misery. Some workers have professional associations they call “unions” that don’t have collective bargaining and just pool retirement money and insurance.
“This is a nice little company you have here. It would be a pity to see anything bad happen to it, if youse knows what I mean.” – The real NLRB mission statement.
“Neutrality” bears a startling resemblance to outright blackmail, it seems.
http://www.xtranormal.com/xtraplayr/12366113/unemployed-airline-pilot
copy/paste for a humorous view of unions. Pardon the language. And yes, the Boeing plant down here is having a good “we knew they’d back down” time.
Re-read that first sentence in the box and digest the sheer leftist liberal lunacy.
Actually I think both sides blinked. And Obama had his finger up in the wind–which, considering that his finger is usually pressed on some honest citizen’s eyeball, is an improvement.
The lawsuit had moved into the discovery phase and the union was demanding to look at Boeing exec’s e-mails. It’s supposedly not okay to explicitly say “We’re going to move to a non union state because these union jerkoffs are making life difficult for us–strikes, work stoppages etc.”
Now that may be why management wants to do it [and Boeing's production plans had been repeatedly bedeviled by just such union activity in its Seattle area plants] but you’re not supposed to say it.
Management and Boeing would get beat about the head and shoulders in the lawsuit and pilloried in the press. And that’s definitely bad ju ju. They didn’t want that heat.
On the Union/NLRB/gangsta gubmint side of the equation, I believe they realized that the NLRB had gone too far. A court challenge could wind up before the Supremes where the Supremes would definitively say that any such NLRB government butcher’s thumb on the scales was a definite No No.
And up in the White House? The oracle of the oval office could see that even the dumbest businessman/campaign contributor could figure out that the Obama government was no friend of business if the Obama NLRB could pull a stunt like this. I mean Boeing had spent something like $2 billion to build this new plant in South Carolina and the NLRB was now saying they couldn’t use it? If you’re making powdered soap and you want to build a new plant in a right to work state, will the NILRB let you do it? Maybe not.
So both sides–and the Bamster–had a lot to lose here if things got pushed to the wall.
So heh heh–”Let’s just bury this dog’s breakfast of a mell of a hess, and pretend it never happened.” And lo and behold, the union got a guarantee of some more 737 production in the Seattle area, Boeing gets to use its new plant in South Carolina to build 787′s and everybody goes home happy.
Not really. The lesson for business people here is (a) more discipline in internal messaging about union matters; and (b) if you want to build a new plant and add more jobs, maybe it’s time to think about “offshore” instead of one of the 20 or so “right to work” states. So far the NLRB has not told anybody that they can’t use a plant they built offshore.
And as for the Bamster? Well this was threatening to become an ugly political issue that even his buddies in the press couldn’t bury. Now it’s all settled, and his campaign next year will have a major case of amnesia when asked about the Boeing NLRB kerfuffle. That’s so yesterday, dead and buried, never happened will be the mantra.
Who knows what really happened but I wonder if the plant in question was the one built by Vought when they were the original partner with Boeing on building the 787 and, when they screwed up, Boeing got the plant when they bought out Vought’s contribution and took over production themselves.
If so Boeing didn’t “decide” to move jobs to S. Carolina but ended up with a plant and employees in S Carolina after they bought the Vought assets. Having now found themselves operating in S Carolina it probably made economic sense to expand there rather than shut the place down and move them all to Washington.
But, and I don’t claim to know, didn’t fit in with the agenda…hence the rage of the left and the intervention of the NRLB.
I”m glad it ended however it ended but this suit is just on incident. The Regime has to go.
I need to add one more item to my 100 days wish list. Fire the NLRB General Counsel and appoint either nobody or a strong pro-business lawyer. I think the latter would be preferable since the NLRB set up a rule to keep the Republican member from resigning that would let the GC run things if the board couldn’t meet quorum.
Watching people getting hoist by their own petard makes me grin like a deck seaman in a Singapore strip club.
Bloody Ludlow.
Boeing is a major player in that industry, competing with state-supported enterprises such as Europe’s EADS, Canada’s Bombardier, and Brazil’s Embraer.
Boeing does enjoy a few $billions of support from the USA.
1. They are a major manufacturer of strategic and tactical assets for the U.S. military.
2. They are the last large airframe manufacturer left in the U.S.
3. Boeing enjoys a few billion in contractual agreements with the U.S. government (see #1).
Bloody Ludlow was 100 years ago. Things have changed and moved on. “Solidarity forever, Solidarity forever….”
It may have been 100 years ago, but times like that could very easily return. I guess because our revolution against a tyrannical government was 235 years ago we can get rid of the Second Amendment, eh?
In an interview in 1960 HHH said:
- Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms…. The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible.
Your second amendment comment is a canard.
The unions have grown to be a monster now. They are stealing the country blind and killing the host which used to support them. Personally, I think it’s grown into a national security issue.
What in the world is wrong with a group of Boeing workers trying to save their jobs through legal means? Really?
Or would some of the more hateful here want them to just roll over like sheeple, lose their jobs, and quietly go on the taxpayer’s dole?
We are a nation of laws. The NLRB has been in place for many years to make sure labor laws, enacted by Congress are followed. It is not a “neutral broker.” It is a legal authority that ensures that workers are protected by laws that an individual worker could never hope to enforce. It attempts to level the field by enforcing labor law.
So is following the law political? Is that wrong? Just because many hate workers? Nevertheless, many want to strip the NLRB and repeal the remaining labor laws. That “many” are corporate funded lobbyists. Bills have recently been introduced as such.
Without organization, the worker has no say over unilateral corporate decisions that can literally wreck their lives. Many here detest a government that might impose unilaterally mandates to buy health insurance. However they will applaud it when a corporation acts in its own interest unilateraly, and against the workers. At least the voter can react to what it dislikes about its government and mandated health insurance. But what is a worker to do, without organization?
The system worked! If any contract law was violated, it was overcome by events. Fortunately a quid pro quo that was agreeable to both sides was reached. Sorry to disappoint any and all union haters here. Remember, these workers are your friends, neighbors, and productive members of your community. Some are even engineers. They have the right to fight for their jobs.
Following the constitution sure seems political to some. What crocodile tears. Boeing has a right to fight for itself. Or do you want the aircraft machinist union to get ownership of Boeing in a bailout? Oups, OBama didnt sugar that union up so lets get the NLRB to work.
Flit,
Did you mean save their jobs through law suits or through legal means? As for not being neutral, it is indeed an agency of the US Government, and its responsibilities go much farther than you hint.
Hi flit. Hadn’t seen you around these parts lately and was beginning to wonder if all was ok in your neck of the woods. I see that you are still in fine form.
Paul
ps- Bugs had the right of it.
PLQ
I really know that you don’t get it. The jobs are there, they’re just not union jobs and never ever will be because the smart ones here see very clearly that making jobs here nothing but an act of politics will offshore them all in a heartbeat.
The unions by acts of will and overt omision killed themselves in a world wide competition. They really really fucked up.
You just saw it here.
Yes indeed back to moderation.
fliterman:
The Unions might have used “legal” means, but that don’t mean the NLRB wasn’t biased.
We Americans are silly that way expecting our GOVERNMENT entities to attempt to behave in an un-biased manner. In practice, the NLRB has never been un-biased, which is one of the reasons (not the only reason) for the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs, and the the strength of the unions in those industries.
That has nothing to do with the rise of GOVERNMENT-WORKER unions over the past 50 years. If not for them, the pull of organized labor would have been greatly reduced. Remind me again, who do gov’t union workers strike against? Who pays their salaries?
my $.02…
Every worker has the right to ask for more wages, more benefits, better working conditions. Excepting conditions that are safety issues (that’s another bag of worms with OSHA overreach) every employer has the right to say NO.
The fact that this could be “legal” disturbs me the most. Maybe the anti-trust laws need to incorporate unions that hold a “monopoly” on labor. After all, labor is a product the way it’s marketed now.
When unions required dues as a part of the employment contract, then it’s not voluntarily joining. Those are the ones that could be subject to the laws. Unions should have to compete for employees just like businesses. Are unions regulated like the businesses they are?
Glad to see that Darrell Issa is going to continue the House investigation of the NLRB suit. This gangsta government garbage needs to stop.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/erikajohnsen/2011/12/09/issa_for_the_win_the_nlrb_inquiry_will_continue
“Thus, neutrality.”
http://www.rbslaw.com/online_library_details.asp?id=15
Nothing I know of that would have prevented Boeing from counter sueing. Except merit, of course. Instead, they decided to deal with the union -
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/dec/05/05weekinreview/
Which, of course, is not an admission of guilt on behalf of Boeing. It’s just business.
Hate to be my normally obnoxious self, but the B787 is marketed against the forthcoming narrow-body A350, not the gigantic body A380.
the above mentioned union has a series of statues on the lawn in front of their building near the Everett plant…the statues are of strikers. Now isn’t that an admission of incompetance? “Yeah, we can’t negotiate worth a crap so we just have to put you member-types on the picket line..”
In this whole fiasco it was the union leadership vs. Boeing. Most of the uniion members I talked to were disgusted by their union’s stance.
Probs won’t be a very popular opinion, but I’ll argue that with the US export/import bank financing billions in orders, that Boeing is very state sponsored…
OT: How long will it take for people to realize who are the real vultures, the suckfish and the plutocratic manipulators are, and who are the true believers being fleeced, but still believing in fairy tales, victims?
Look around. Who is wrecking our nation? It is not the ‘wacky left’. They are far outmanned, out-moneyed, and weak and overwhelmed by the plutocrats and the corpratocracy.
We all suffer, except them who make their money bypassing the rules, or exploit slave labor and killer environment overseas, and invest it there too!
“30 Major U.S. Companies Spent More on Lobbying than Taxes
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/tgICts
Who has the gold, rules. Do you have the gold? Then suffer.
Yes, the left are too stupid. I’d say it is whoever is responsible for stealing a minimum of 50% of the money that is spent in each and every federal department and program. To some extent state and local. Personally, I’d say it is a matter of national security. Why not address it as such?
Except….that doesn’t take into account all the other taxes – including the quarterly estimates – that they pay. There are so many more ways to tax corporations than just income.
Besides – taxes get rolled into the cost of goods or services, so if we “tax the corporations” all that really does is make “the 99%” pay more for everything.