Marathon Pundit: Report from the bloggers' call with Gov. Nikki Haley on the NLRB-Boeing case

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Report from the bloggers' call with Gov. Nikki Haley on the NLRB-Boeing case

Boeing HQ, Chicago,
August 30, 2011

Boeing thought it was performing a good deed by opening up a $750 million plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, bringing 1,000 new jobs to the Palmetto State to build the new Dreamliner 787. The Chicago-based aviation giant has major manufacturing facilities in Kansas and Washington state, but no jobs were lost in either place. In fact it has added 2,000 jobs in Washington state since plans for the South Carolina facility were announced. But President Obama's radicalized National Labor Relations Board ruled that because South Carolina was a right-to-work-state and the Seattle-area Boeing factory has been plagued with strikes, it viewed the construction of the new plant as a retaliatory move.

Earlier this morning I participated in a bloggers' conference call with South Carolina's governor, Nikki Haley.

I'm going to start with my question, which came at the end of the call. I queried the governor if she was aware that the NLRB was even investigating the opening of the plant in her state. "No," she replied. "I think we were shocked. And in all honesty, when this ruling came down I thought it was funny--I didn't even believe it. And then the next day I realized that this was actually real." Boeing was shocked too, "They don't understand how this could happen."

Gov. Nikki Haley

OF the NLRB, Haley said, "What you have is a rogue agency that is doing the most un-American thing imaginable to our country." She continued, "And as we are looking at President Obama to give his speech [next Thursday] on jobs, the only thing I want to hear from him, the only thing the people of this country want to hear from him, is that he is going to disband the NLRB or get them to step down from the great American company that chose to do business in South Carolina as opposed to going overseas."

Haley vows not to give up on this struggle and she says Boeing won't quit either. "Boeing is fighting this on behalf of every company in this country," the Republican said, "and I am fighting this on behalf of every governor in this country."

Obama has been pretty much mum about the NLRB-Boeing controversy, only commenting that the NLRB is "independent," although board member Craig Becker and NLRB general counsel were placed in their jobs by the president utilizing recess appointments.

In regards to Obama and NLRB overreach, Haley told us, "He either needs to agree or oppose, but he can't stay silent. Not at a time when our number one issue is jobs."

The August jobless figures will be released tomorrow.

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