Today's NLRB law-inventing review

Boeing headquarters, Chicago

Here is today's collection of stories on the law-inventing by the radicalized-NLRB:

The Washington Times:

Neither side is budging in an increasingly bitter fight over aerospace giant Boeing’s plans to start production on its 787 Dreamliner fleet at a new $2 billion plant in South Carolina — a move the National Labor Relations Board says was made to punish the company's union workers.

NLRB officials insist they are simply enforcing existing labor laws, relying on statements and internal evidence from Boeing that they say clearly show company officials discussing the South Carolina investment as a way to circumvent its union, in violation of federal law.

But Boeing, leading business groups and nearly two dozen Republican senators say the board — now dominated by President Obama's appointees — has greatly overstepped its authority and interfered with a private business decision, all to placate Mr. Obama's labor supporters.

Charleston Post and Courier:

Bill Daley used to be a big shot at Boeing as a member of its board of directors. Now he's a big shot at the White House as President Obama's chief of staff.

James McNerney is still the biggest of shots at Boeing as its president. Now he's a big shot in the Obama administration as chairman of its Export Council.

How could pro-labor President Obama choose for high-ranking White House positions powerful officials from a company that, according to the National Labor Relations Board complaint, violated federal law by making "coercive statements" against a union in Washington state?

Boeing officials cited the availability of a non-union work force as a major factor in their business decision to open a 787 Dreamliner Assembly plant in North Charleston. In light of the five strikes that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers have called against Boeing since 1977, that seems a reasonable consideration -- and statement of the obvious.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, here is what McNerney says:

The NLRB is wrong and has far overreached its authority. Its action is a fundamental assault on the capitalist principles that have sustained America's competitiveness since it became the world's largest economy nearly 140 years ago. We've made a rational, legal business decision about the allocation of our capital and the placement of new work within the U.S. We're confident the federal courts will reject the claim, but only after a significant and unnecessary expense to taxpayers.

More worrisome, though, are the potential implications of such brazen regulatory activism on the U.S. manufacturing base and long-term job creation. The NLRB's overreach could accelerate the overseas flight of good, middle-class American jobs.

Contrary to the NLRB's claim, our decision to expand in South Carolina resulted from an objective analysis of the same factors we use in every site selection. We considered locations in several states but narrowed the choice to either North Charleston (where sections of the 787 are built already) or Everett, Wash., which won the initial 787 assembly line in 2003.

Our union contracts expressly permit us to locate new work at our discretion. However, we viewed Everett as an attractive option and engaged voluntarily in talks with union officials to see if we could make the business case work. Among the considerations we sought were a long-term "no-strike clause" that would ensure production stability for our customers, and a wage and benefit growth trajectory that would help in our cost battle against Airbus and other state-sponsored competitors.

The Washington Post:

For weeks, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has been working to bring more attention to a local fight between Boeing and the National Labor Relations Board.

Could it be the next Wisconsin — a showdown between a prominent (and newly elected) Republican governor and national labor groups? Haley seems to hope so.

At a press conference packed with prominent Republicans at the Chamber of Commerce Tuesday morning, Haley argued that the future of the country is at stake. "This is an issue that may have started in South Carolina, but we want to make sure it never touches another state," she said. "This an unbelievable attack on not just right-to-work states but every state that's attempting to put their people to work."

Writing for National Review Online, Sen. Orrin Hatch:

The chilling effect of this complaint will be unmistakable. To borrow from Frank Sinatra, if they can do it there, they can do it anywhere. If the NLRB can do this to South Carolina, disrupting business and killing jobs, it can do it anywhere, including Utah or any other right-to-work state. This is likely the very message the Board is trying to send with the Boeing complaint.

This is nothing short of a gift-wrapped present to Big Labor, which is not surprising. To date, the president and congressional Democrats have been unable to enact the most significant parts of their pro-union agenda — such as the Employee Free Choice Act — through the legislative process. So, instead, they have opted to let unelected bureaucrats do their dirty work for them.

In this instance, the government-official-turned-union-foot-soldier was the NLRB's Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon. But this is certainly not the first time an agency under the Obama administration has sought to circumvent Congress to help out the unions. Last year, for example, the National Mediation Board (NMB), which regulates labor relations in the transportation sector, overturned 75 years of policy in an attempt to grease the rails in union elections and make unionization the default position of the airline industry.

More than just matters of ideology, these types of government actions are debilitating to our economy at a time when we are struggling to recover from one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. While these decisions may appease certain political constituencies, they also cost jobs at a time when we are struggling to reduce unemployment.

Bloomberg:

Republicans demanded that President Barack Obama respond to a complaint against Boeing Co. (BA) by the National Labor Relations Board, saying the agency's action on a South Carolina airplane factory may crimp job creation.

"For the president to not weigh in on this is a problem," Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said today after a meeting at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to discuss the case. "We need to see leadership. This is an unbelievable attack on a state" that is attempting "to put people to work."

Technorati tags: Orrin Hatch politics Democrats utah gop Republican unions news organized labor jobs economy law legal business Boeing aviation nlrb south carolina