Marathon Pundit: End of May NLRB overreach roundup

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

End of May NLRB overreach roundup

Gingrich and Marathon Pundit at CPAC

The last day of May brings up more NLRB overreach stories.

From Big Government:

There is no point in coming back to the chronology of the IAM-NLRB-Boeing case nor to the underlying interests of some stakeholders in the SEIU – Sodexo case anymore than we already did. What we would like to do in this article is to open the debate on the consequences of these events on the American business.

Entrepreneurs (both Americans and foreign ones) know that our American principles have been based on two pillars: free enterprise and a free country. Recent events in our country could change this perception. In the IAM-Boeing case, the NLRB filled a complaint against the airplane manufacturer on the basis that the company's decision to locate its second production line had not been made on rational arguments (e.g.: diversifying its production centers) but had been a retaliation against past strikes led by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at Boeing's plant in Everett, WA. Following the fuss made by the complaint, the NLRB felt obliged to explain that it did not order Boeing to relocate the second production line to Washington – yet this explanation was hardly convincing. A state agency that tells a company where and what to manufacture was the model adopted by some countries but had never been in place in America until now.

The NLRB and the unions do not think on a long-term basis. The impact of the IAM-Boeing case is huge. If a company cannot choose where to locate its production in the US, the question will be raised whether to locate it abroad. Boeing could have chosen to locate the second production line in Mexico but they picked up South Carolina, creating 1,000 jobs by the way.

Weekly Standard:

Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., sat down for an interview with Coffee and Markets, a podcast hosted by Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech. When asked about the National Labor Relations Board's attempt to keep Boeing from building a factory in his state, DeMint had some exceptionally harsh words for the NLRB:

DeMint: I mean, they'll lose the first couple of appeals because they go back to the board that the President has stocked with union thugs basically, and –

Cianfrocca: "Union thugs", may we quote you? That's a great word.

DeMint: Once this gets in front of a fair and impartial judge they'll win, but it's only after millions of dollars in legal expenses and several years of chilling effect.

Cianfrocca: Yes.

DeMint: What they're trying to do is to tell any company in America, don't even think about moving to a right to work state or expanding to a right to work state or you're going to have to go through millions of dollars of legal expenses and this type of government harassment. It's pretty amazing in America that we're dealing with this type of third world tyranny.

The Hill:

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had an independent agency take down a stinging press release aimed at the House Republicans' budget proposal, according to a newly released document.

In an e-mail obtained by The Hill under a Freedom of Information Act request, an OMB official told a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) officer she should have checked before sending out a Feb. 18 press release titled, "Top NLRB officials respond to House budget proposal."

The NLRB statement slammed what was then the GOP’s proposed continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2011.

AP:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Friday raised the ante on the fight between Boeing Co. and the National Labor Relations Board, an emerging issue in this key early-primary state.

Making his first visit to South Carolina as a declared Republican presidential candidate, Gingrich said that Congress should cut funding for the NLRB and tie that move to congressional talks over increasing the nation's debt limit.

The NLRB says Boeing built a non-union assembly plant in South Carolina in retaliation for a 2008 union strike in Washington state, where most of that work is now done by union workers.

"I think it's something they should consider seriously putting on the debt ceiling," Gingrich told a Columbia civic group. That way, he said, President Barack Obama would have to "explain to the rest of the country that he's prepared to veto the debt ceiling over his right to attack every right-to-work state."

Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has been leading attacks on the NLRB, has insisted that GOP presidential candidates address the issue.

The Hill:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Friday in a speech in crucial 2012 primary state South Carolina that the National Labor Relations Board's lawsuit against Boeing was proof of big government's ability to destroy jobs.

Speaking at the Five Points Rotary Club, Gingrich slammed the NLRB, which has sued Boeing for allegedly retaliating against strikes by unions in its home of Washington state by planning to open a plant to build more 787s in South Carolina. Boeing has currently been building 787 airplanes at its unionized plant near Seattle, but South Carolina is a "right to work" state, where employers are not obliged to join a union.

Gingrich said Friday the lawsuit was an "illegal action" that "puts all those jobs at risk."

"Here in South Carolina you are witnessing first hand and up close another glaring proof of the corrupting nature of big government and it ability to destroy jobs," Gingrich said in prepared remarks released by his campaign. "I'm speaking, of course, about the effort by the Obama administration’s National Labor Relations Board to stop Boeing's Dreamliner plant from opening up in Charleston."