Marathon Pundit: First day of summer NLRB overrreach edition

The seasons change and the overreach continues to heat up.

From the Daily Caller:

Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has joined the chorus crying foul over what seems to be an aggressive overreach by the Obama administration's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in declaring Boeing's expansion into South Carolina, a non-union state, illegal because it allegedly retaliates against union employees in Washington state.

On Monday's "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough asked Issa if he was trying to abolish the NLRB for its efforts to stop aircraft manufacturer Boeing from building airplanes in Charleston, S.C. According Issa, that's not exactly case, but the NLRB is overstepping its authority.

"That may be a little bit more than we are trying to do," Issa said. "The NLRB has interpreted the National Labor Relations Act in a way where they have basically filed suit against Boeing, even though what Boeing was doing was simply choosing to expand and put new jobs in South Carolina. Well, they were also adding jobs in Everett, Wash., the Seattle area and we are questioning whether or not they have exceeded — there's no absolute law that says they can do that. They are interpreting that even though it's a growth, ultimately by not putting them in Everett it is a retaliation. I think that is far in excess of their mandate. If the labor union wants to make a suit, make a suit but for the government to spend your tax dollars to pursue seems to be over the top."

Issa said Boeing had merit in building a South Carolina facility and thus he questioned the use of taxpayer money to prevent the facility from being operational.

Go Upstate:

Under the Obama administration, the NLRB is no longer a mediator between labor and management nor a federal regulator enforcing federal law. It is instead a tool of the big labor unions, working to help them consolidate power, build membership and increase their coffers so they can donate more money to Democratic candidates.

But there is more at stake here than partisan politics. If the unions and the NLRB succeed, companies will not be free to locate their operations where their business needs dictate. They will be forced to justify or change their plans as dictated by the federal government.

What will happen when a company like Boeing is prohibited from locating in South Carolina to take advantage of the better business climate here? It will seek a better business climate overseas. This type of action by Washington will simply chase more manufacturing jobs overseas.

Even some in Seattle realize this. In an editorial published last week, The Seattle Times pointed out that Boeing offered to locate the new assembly line in Washington State if the union would agree to a no-strike contract. The union refused. "The law the Labor Board says Boeing violated, Section 8 (a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act, is about protecting union activists from being penalized. It is not about protecting an entire union local from the economic consequences of what it does," the newspaper stated.

Hot Air:

And Boeing wants to turn the manufacture of airplanes – airplanes! – over to these poorly educated, low-skilled workers in South Carolina.

Here's a weird fact, though. There is already a plant manufacturing rear-fuselage elements for Boeing in South Carolina. (The Dreamliner final-assembly plant that opened 10 June is located next to it.) South Carolina also has a BMW plant, a Honda plant, a Bosch plant, a Caterpillar plant, an American LaFrance plant (fire engines and ambulances), and a Daimler plant, all employing highly-skilled labor to manufacture big, intricate stuff that has to work. That's in addition to the Milliken, BASF, GE, Core, Bose, BP, DAK, DuPont, Eastman, Mitsubishi, Albemarle, MeadWestvaco, PhilChem, Roche, Mount Vernon Mills, Invista, Metromont, Johns Manville, Alcoa, Kimberly-Clark, Shaw, Jarrett, Mohawk, Anderson, AccuTrex, Sonoco, and Cox Industries plants – and those are just the ones I recognized by industry as I looked through the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance website. I left out a bunch of other ones.

Should I go on? If Southern manufacturing workers are a national liability, we're in big trouble. All those aircraft engines being mishandled at the Pratt & Whitney plant in Georgia. Shoddy VWs and Nissans coming out of Tennessee, Hyundai clunkers being puked out of Alabama, lousy Kias flooding the market from Georgia, Toyota risking its customers on the gap-toothed th'owbacks who show up with employment applications in Mississippi.

Texas is going to get us all killed: there are 248 separate listings for aircraft and aircraft parts manufacturers just in the Dallas area alone. And let's not even get started on all the scary, substandard manufacturing going on in North Carolina, where Honda headquarters its global aircraft-components manufacturing, and thousands of non-agricultural manufacturers are heaving chemicals, plastics, textiles, engine parts, computer parts, airplane and vehicle parts, and who know what else at an unsuspecting market every day of the year.

The Washington Post:

With the federal government's labor board stepping into a bitter fight between aerospace giant Boeing and its main union, President Obama faces a political quandary because of his administration's close ties to both sides.

Obamas chief of staff, William Daley, and his nominee for Commerce secretary, John Bryson, until months ago both served on Boeing's board. Obama also tapped Boeing's chief executive, Jim McNerney, to head the President's Export Council, designed to help achieve the adminstration's goal of doubling exports by 2015.

Meanwhile, Obama rode into office with broad support from labor. His campaign organization helped coordinate protests for public employees when their bargaining rights were at stake in Wisconsin and other states. And he has reshaped the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces labor laws and has moved to a more pro-union stance after years of siding with employers under President George W. Bush.

The dispute has escalated in recent months with a suit brought by the NLRB, an independent agency, accusing Boeing of opening its gleaming white-and-blue Dreamliner assembly plant here, rather than in Washington state, in retaliation for strikes at the company's West Coast operations.

The Atlanta Examiner:

Attorney General Sam Olens last week, on behalf of the state, joined a bi-partisan, 16-state coalition in filing an amicus brief opposing the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) recent action attempting to block a business' expansion which would create new, non-unionized jobs in South Carolina, a right-to-work state.

Attorney General Olens stated, "The brief was filed by attorneys general from right-to-work and unionized states after a proposed retaliatory enforcement action against Boeing for its decision to build a new final production line facility in South Carolina. The NLRB asserts that it took this unprecedented action to protect the unionized workforce in Washington State, where a similar facility is located. Contrary to the NLRB's claim that union workers would be harmed, Boeing has actually added 2,000 union jobs in Washington State since the company made plans to expand into South Carolina.

This action by the NLRB will directly harm the ability of every state to attract business and promote new job growth. Businesses will be reluctant to construct new facilities in right-to-work states for fear of retaliation by the NLRB. Likewise, new businesses will be discouraged from locating in unionized states knowing that they will be handcuffed should they wish to expand into a right-to-work state in the future. The more serious danger is that businesses will forgo establishing operations in the United States altogether and relocate overseas where the NLRB has no enforcement jurisdiction.

During this difficult economic climate when countless Americans are still unemployed, the NLRB has decided to exert its powers in an unprecedented way to the detriment of workers and their families. Although the NLRB action was not taken in Georgia, it is a real threat to our ability to recruit business and create jobs in the future and I will use the full resources of the Attorney General's office to protect our state's economy."