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House Rebukes NLRB on Boeing
The GOP-led House on Thursday launched a full-scale assault against the National Labor Relations Board – the first step in their fall goal of rolling back regulations that they say hamper job growth.
“All of these attacks are designed to remove a vital check on corporate power overrunning our democracy,” Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, said recently. The chamber voted 238-186 on a bill that bars the NLRB from forcing businesses to close or relocate jobs — a direct rebuke of a recent decision by the board to block Boeing from moving a plant to South Carolina. The legislation likely doesn’t have much of a future in the Democratic-controlled Senate, although Republicans in the upper chamber have pushed for action on the matter.
“The NLRB has plenty of tools at its disposal to protect workers and hold employers accountable for unlawful labor practices,” said Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who sponsored the bill. “There is simply no reason it should have the power to dictate where a private business can establish its workforce.”
The dispute – which has become a cause célèbre among conservatives — stems from Boeing’s opening of a $1 billion non-union plant in South Carolina, following union strikes that disrupted production of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft in Washington state. The labor board argues that Boeing’s actions were in retaliation against the strikes and a violation of labor laws.
Boeing has argued that shuttering the South Carolina facility would eliminate 1,000 jobs.
Lafe Solomon, the NLRB’s acting general counsel, has defended his board’s ruling and said it wasn’t politically motivated.
House Republicans have made Thursday’s vote the first step in their autumn agenda of dismantling federal regulations in areas such as labor, health care and the environment that they say are shredding jobs in the United States. They plan to target the NLRB again in the winter, when they’ll take up action in response to the board’s proposed changes to union representation election procedures.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also held a June hearing in South Carolina investigating the NLRB ruling. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), has subpoenaed the NLRB for documents related to the dispute, claiming that the labor board’s rulings could set a “job-killing precedent.”
The NLRB-Boeing fight has also become a pivotal 2012 issue since it involves the critical early primary state of South Carolina. Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, a coveted endorsement for any GOP nominee, has railed against the NLRB ruling and called it a “rogue agency.”
House Democrats termed the legislation the “GOP’s Job Outsourcers’ Bill of Rights” and hammered Republicans for pushing a bill that they contend would harm workers and ship more jobs overseas.
“All of these attacks are designed to remove a vital check on corporate power overrunning our democracy,” Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, said recently. “Working families don’t need smaller paychecks. And workers don’t need fewer protections on the job. But that’s what they will get if this bill becomes law.”
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11 Comments so far
Show AllConsider for a moment the case of the US corporation at the heart of this article. Boeing management has a long history of tripping over itself. Poor labor relations are merely the latest fiasco in a long line of blunders that include trying to put the fix in on defense contracts, ethical imbroglios, purchases of other defense firms at bloated prices... and so on.
And then, of course, there are the torture flights:
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2009/02/obama_keeps_lid_on_boeing_tort.php
Boeing got big on the back of huge defense contracts. It then had the nerve to challenge European support of Airbus, claiming that it was at a competitive disadvantage.
One of their recurring difficulties has been with supply chain difficulties. In the old days, Boeing did not subcontract as much of the manufacture of its planes as it does now.
http://www.bnet.com/blog/sec-filings/mismanagement-at-boeing-crashes-replacement-b737-jet/612
For more of the sorry tale, here is a link from 2003. Things have not improved. The regrettable thing is, Boeing was once a proud company, an example of US technology and know-how. Its current difficulties reflect many of the problems of the nation-- a management salary structure that is bloated at the top, the inability to quickly adapt to changing conditions, and too much emphasis placed on staying competitive by downsizing and outsourcing. Not to mention the failure to learn from mistakes.
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/07/business/fi-flan7
For more, simply search on "Boeing mismanagement." You will find plenty to read and ponder.
Yet MORE Republican lying for the purposes of mis-direction. Republicans are incapable of actually debating the real issues. This has ZERO, NADA, NIL to do with whether Boeing can have production in SC. It has EVERYTHING to do with whether or not the move by Boeing was in relation to workers in WA engaging in their free market rights to collectively bargain. It is becoming increasingly impossible to find any single issue which the Republicans will debate HONESTLY. Their entire debating position relies upon propaganda for the purposes of mis-directing the debate.
Looks like the far right loonies in the congress are out prove just how crazy they are.
Would someone inform them at least two times this countries had to fight against this kind of mentality embedded in Prussian militarism which Frederick the Great invented to keep the working class servants to the owner class. We don't need this kind of anti American damn, unpatriotic damn garbage. I would have said why don't you go to Prusia, but today Prussia wouldn't have much use for your garbage? At least it seems Germany learned something from the those two unnecesary and aggressive militarist polices tied to oppressing the working class and the hard they did.
Germany, which then was the slime with the militaristic brainwashing they underwent even in their schools. Now we seem to be making the same mistake with the media making it even worse.
If instead of a for-profit corporation, what if Boeing were a worker cooperative? Every one of the issues discussed in the article, the comments, and in the press would be irrelevant. How to get there...
All it would take is the workers to organize and raise enough money to buy the company out. If Boeing would sell is another matter.
RE: "House Democrats ...hammered Republicans for pushing a bill that they contend would harm workers and ship more jobs overseas."
And of course we know that the Democrats have been the bulwark protecting the American working class from this rightwing job-killing process for the last 30 years? Right.
You'd think with all the hand-wringing about the Tea Party crazies and the evil GOP that they had control of the Senate and the presidency too.
What are the odds of Obama sticking up for the unionized workers at Boeing vs Boeing Corp. the contributor?
I think it is way past time to fear Al-Qaeda. And about time to fear our corporate,Government!
The NLRB wants to close down a brand new plant that will employ over 1000 well paid workers.
Is that an appropriate remedy for Boeing's offense?
Does that mean that the federal government can tell businesses where to locate?
Does that mean that it can also tell workers where to work?
It's a troublesome road we're travelin' here.
The NLRB is only (meekly) enforcing the law. The NLRB is supposed to protect the interests of workers, but historically they have almost always sided with the bosses.
Those "1000 well paid" jobs used to be a lot better paying jobs to workers in Washington State (the home of Boeing). So what should be an "appropriate remedy for Boeing's offense"? Give them ANOTHER subsidy and/or ANOTHER billion dollar military contract? ANOTHER slap-on-the-wrist fine? (They've had dozens of those for defrauding the Pentagon anyway.)
Cranky old libertarian is how your post reads to me.
Guilty as charged. ;-) Still and all the practical implications of this action might make even a progressive pause. Boeing's on the hot seat for two reasons. First because it tried to negotiate with at least one of its unions before making the decision to site a plant outside of Washington. And second, because one of its officers suggested that a threat of strikes was one of the major reasons for siting the new plant in South Carolina. If the NLRB's complaint is upheld, in the future, how many companies will attempt to negotiate with workers before moving offshore or to a different state? How many will be honest about the reasons for the labor component of their business decisions? Even if the NLRB wins this battle, the complaint will end up hurting workers by giving businesses another reason to move their operations offshore where they aren't subject to boards like the NLRB and by making business decisions more opaque. So if the board wins, it loses and if it loses, it loses. How intelligent is that?