Ex-Clinton NLRB board member: Boeing decision doesn't make sense

It's not just Republicans who are questioning the wisdom of the NLRB's Boeing decision. Slate spoke with a Democrat who is against it.

Bill Gould has some advice for the labor movement: Turn back. Turn back before it's too late. What prompts his suggestion is a case involving Boeing's plan to move some production of its 787 airliners to South Carolina, a right-to-work state, from Washington state. The union in Washington protested the move, and the National Labor Relations Board has taken up its complaint. Republicans immediately pounced on the case as evidence of the Obama administration's business-unfriendly attitude—and even Gould, who served on the board in the Clinton administration, is mystified by the NLRB's actions.

"The Boeing case is unprecedented," he says. "I agree with much of what this board has done and is likely to do, but I don't agree with what the general counsel has done in the Boeing case. The general counsel is trying to equate an employer's concern with strikes that disrupt production and make it difficult to make deadlines—he's trying to equate that with hostility toward trade unionism. I don't think that makes sense."

Hat tip to Red State.

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