Marathon Pundit: Mid-June and mid-week NLRB-overeach review

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Mid-June and mid-week NLRB-overeach review

It's the middle of the week and the middle of June. The days fly by but the NLRB overreach continues.

From the Wall Street Journal, subscription required:

Lawyers for Boeing Co. and the National Labor Relations Board clashed Tuesday at a hearing on the board's allegations that the aircraft maker illegally shifted work from union plants in Washington state to a new non-union factory in South Carolina.

The hearing, which dealt mostly with procedural issues, marked the start of what could be a lengthy and politically charged legal battle, unless Boeing and the company's machinists union, whose complaint sparked the board's inquiry, settle their differences.

The administrative law judge hearing the case urged the parties Tuesday to work toward a settlement.

AP:

A congressional committee investigating a National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing Co. will hear from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and the chief attorney for the labor board during a hearing this week.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government is looking into an NLRB lawsuit claiming that Boeing built an assembly line for its new 787 aircraft in South Carolina in retaliation against unionized workers in Washington state.

The $750 million plant, the largest single industrial investment in South Carolina history, opened last week. The NLRB complaint goes before a judge in Seattle on Tuesday.

The congressional committee meeting Friday in North Charleston announced Tuesday that Haley and NLRB acting general counsel Lafe Solomon will be among the witnesses.

Wolf Blitzer's CNN blog:

Rightly or wrongly, here's one reason why some major Obama big business 2008 campaign supporters now have reservations about supporting him again. It involves a huge Boeing investment in a new assembly plant in Charleston, South Carolina.

Boeing has spent about $750 million so far in building the 787 Dreamliner plant and has already hired 1,000 workers. The plant is supposed to open in the coming days, but the National Labor Relations Board is threatening to shut it down. NLRB officials say Boeing could be in violation of labor relations laws.

That's because Boeing employees in Washington state, where the firm is based, are largely union members. Employees in South Carolina are not. Here’s how The Wall Street Journal put it: "At issue is whether Boeing chose South Carolina, a state where unions are weak, to retaliate against union workers in Washington, who have a history of strikes that have disrupted production."

Law.com:

Boeing Company attorney William Kilberg wasted no time in asking an administrative law judge in Seattle Tuesday to dismiss the unfair labor practice case against the company, making the motion as the hearing opened.

The proceeding—which began Tuesday before associate chief ALJ Clifford Anderson—is set to hear the National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing. The case is expected to last several weeks, and the losing party is likely to appeal to the NLRB in Washington, D.C., and eventually to a federal appeals court.

The first days will be spent hearing what would be considered "pre-trial motions" in a regular trial, including Kilberg's Hail Mary motion to dismiss.

The NLRB has accused the company of illegally retaliating against union workers for past strikes by adding a non-union assembly line for the 787 Dreamliner passenger jet in Charleston, South Carolina. The first assembly line continues to work in a plant near Seattle, and the NLRB wants Boeing to move the second line there.