In the most recent chapter of the Boeing vs the NLRB saga, House Republicans have demanded the Becker Board provide them information on the Board’s decision to file a union-retaliation complaint against Boeing for building an airplane factory in South Carolina. The House Education and Workforce Committee gave the Board until May 19 to submit documents and communications between the national NLRB office and the regional office that investigated the case. That decision came on the heels of this statement issued last week by Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN). “It appears an activist NLRB is more concerned about protecting certain special interests than the rights of all workers to compete for jobs. This action will have a chilling effect on businesses looking to expand operations, create jobs, and hire employees here in the United States. This kind of federal overreach helps demonstrate why so many workplaces have closed their doors and moved overseas, and is an unprecedented attack on the American workforce.” The committee’s action is only the latest in a chorus of objections to the Board’s April 20 complaint against Boeing. As we reported in the last issue of INK the IAM argued that Boeing’s new South Carolina facility would impinge upon their Puget Sound members’ “right to strike.” (Something the IAM repeatedly offered to bargain away from those same members in return for a nationwide neutrality agreement.) Former NLRB Chair Peter Schaumber called the complaint “unprecedented” and added, “The workers don’t have any claim to the work. If the workers don’t have any claim to the work, it wasn’t retaliatory to open a new second production line… (Boeing) is simply expanding its business operation.” 
National Association of Manufacturer’s VP Joe Trauger wrote the complaint “would effectively set a national standard of prohibiting companies with some union representation from expanding in right-to-work states. By pursuing this case, the NLRB is reversing 45 years of its own precedent and Supreme Court rulings to advance its agenda to expand unionization.” Unfortunately, according to the National Review, the charges against Boeing actually don’t directly contradict any precedent or the murky wording of the Act itself. However it remains unclear whether an employer is forbidden to “discriminate” against unionized plants, as opposed to individual workers who’ve engaged in protected activities. Forbes called the complaint against Boeing “national economic suicide” making the point that never before has an agency of the federal government told a company it may not relocate within the United States. The new South Carolina assembly line would be in addition to, not a replacement of, the Puget Sound line that has been unable to keep up with orders. (In no small part due to frequent work stoppages.) And those orders for American built planes will soon be lost if the NLRB does not back down. The company could argue that, given the lessons of Sendai, it’s unwise to concentrate a company’s production capacity in one area especially in a tsunami zone on a fault line surrounded by active volcanoes. And certainly if Boeing were attempting to open the same production line in Canada or China the NLRB would not even whimper. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley weighed in through the Wall Street Journal calling the complaint “nothing less than a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America.” She also called out Obama for his silence on the mess. Her remarks were followed up by a letter signed by the Attorneys General for Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia and South Carolina, many of whom have had their own run–ins recently with the over-reaching claws of the Becker Board. The letter called upon the Board to immediately withdraw the complaint against Boeing calling it “an assault upon the constitutional right of free speech, and the ability of our states to create jobs and recruit industry. ” This week Boeing issued its first official statement on the complaint, a scathing response to the Board’s general counsel, blasting him for making false accusations, misquotes and mischaracterizations. But perhaps Ed Morrissey summarized it all best in Hot Air. “Workers have the ability to collectively bargain for wages, benefits, and working conditions in the private sector if they desire. If they make their labor too costly and businesses can conduct their operations elsewhere, then they have the right to do so, too. The government has no legitimate role in forcing business owners to be hostages to their workforce. If the workers price themselves out of their jobs, then they need to deal with the consequences. The ability to collectively bargain does not include a guarantee of a job.”
