The National Labor Relations Board or NLRB touts itself on its web site as an independent federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve their wages and working conditions. Exactly why do we have an NLRB in this day and age? If you know, please clue me in. It seems like an agency who’s sole job is to side with employees against employers. God knows we want to do everything we can to push business away as hard as we can. It’s not like we could actually use a few jobs these days.
Taken from the NLRB web site “The Agency has 51 offices and is headquartered in Washington, DC. Local field offices initiate investigations of unfair labor practices to determine whether there is cause to believe that the National Labor Relations Act has been violated and conduct secret-ballot elections to determine whether employees desire union representation.” Sounds like a budget cut screaming for action.
Let’s be honest, do you think the NLRB will come to your rescue if your employer screws you out of some of your benefits? Will they be taking the lead should you be asked to work uncompensated overtime? Get real!
The NLRB is nothing more than the federal arm of the unions. And if there was ever any question as to whether the NLRB was in the pocket of the unions consider this story:
The NLRB last month filed a complaint to block the start-up of operations at a new plant built by Boeing, to assemble the new 787 in South Carolina. The folks of South Carolina, which are likely to lose the more than 1,000 jobs already created at the new plant as it prepares for operations, are madder than a hornet.
The complaint filed by the NLRB claims that Boeing made “coercive statements” regarding union-led strikes, and then retaliated by transferring its second line to the non-union facility. NLRB quoted a statement by a Boeing executive during an interview that the overriding factor in going to South Carolina — a right-to-work state where unions cannot force employees to join — was a desire to avoid disruptions. The union in Washington State has led several strikes against Boeing since the 1970s, most recently in 2005 and 2008.
Boeing isn’t taking the NLRB’s actions lightly, arguing that not a single job was lost from the Washington State operations and that the South Carolina plan is a second final assembly line. Perhaps South Carolina, being a right-to-Work state, doesn’t grease enough union palms.
Boeing also noted that a comment an NLRB spokeswoman made to Fox News.com last week stating that Boeing is transferring work away from union employees in direct opposition to prior commitments of Boeing to build the 787 in the sate is utterly false. An NLRB spokesperson stated that Boeing acted to “punish” its workers because of their stated desire to avoid strikes is a violation of federal rules. You think there’s a single employer in any state that wouldn’t desire to avoid strikes!
“A worker’s right to strike is a fundamental right guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act,” the NLRB said in a statement. “We also recognize the rights of employers to make business decisions based on their economic interests, but they must do so within the law.”
Welcome to some bizarro world where employers must make business decisions based on how the unions feel about it. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which initially filed the allegation against Boeing with the NLRB in March of last year, said in a statement that the South Carolina decision was aimed at the union. And…so what? What could possibly be illegal about spending 10’s of millions of dollars to create a factory in a right-to-work state? It happens all the time. Virginia makes a point of the fact that it is arRight-to-work state as an incentive to employers. Right-to-work has proven to create a more business friendly environment, creating millions of jobs and there’s no evidence that workers in these states suffer in the least. I’d assume that the millions of unemployed would be happy to have those jobs, even if they don’t get quite as generous benefits. Perhaps the workers in Seattle should ask their union representatives why they’re pursuing contracts that devastate a private company’s revenue driving them to relocate operations to states that don’t consider corporate profits as some sort of moralist equivalent to the sweatshops of the 1920s.
Is it right for the NLRB to freeze operations and cease the completion of the Boeing plant in South Carolina as some illicit pay back for union donations to the Democrat party? Of course not. And South Carolina Jim DeMint isn’t going to sit still while a “political favor” for the unions who supported President Obama’s 2008 campaign punishes unemployed workers in his state.
Businesses should be able to locate anywhere they feel is in the best interests of the company. Despise it as I might, this is the type of bullying and economic punishment dealt out by the federal government that has pushed manufacturers to flee the U.S. over the past decade. Will the NLRB feel better if the Boeing 787 is built in China? Keep up the good work you bought-and-paid-for political cronies and that’s just what will happen.
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