Posted on 05/12/2011 2:49:43 PM PDT by Libloather
Boeing Labor Fight Takes Over Harkin Hearing
By Melanie Trottman
May 12, 2011, 4:47 PM ET
An effort by Senate Democrats Thursday to highlight the problems of the middle class turned into a partisan debate over the merits of Boeing Co.’s effort to build a non-union airplane factory – a project now under attack by the National Labor Relations Board.
Chicago-based Boeing’s general counsel, invited by Republicans to be a witness at a Senate panel led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) , portrayed Boeing as a company that could be frustrated in its effort to create good-paying manufacturing jobs by the Democratic NLRB.
The NLRB’s general counsel alleged Boeing violated federal labor law by locating the second production line for its 787 Dreamliner at the nonunion plant in South Carolina, siding with union workers in Washington state who said Boeing’s action was retaliation for past labor strikes.
The NLRB has scheduled a hearing in the matter for June 14 in Seattle – home to Boeing’s unionized production operations. “Presumptively, I do expect to lose,” Boeing’s General Counsel Michael Luttig said. If he’s correct, Boeing would appeal to the agency’s majority Democrat board, a process he said he also expects the company would lose. He suggested the case could be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, taking several years and making it “exceedingly difficult” to determine whether to invest more in the South Carolina facility.
“This is not the way to encourage new job creation in the U.S. or even keep the jobs we currently have,” said Sen. Michael Enzi, the ranking Republican on the Help Education Labor and Pensions Committee that convened the hearing. “The NLRB’s complaint is both legally unfounded and it is irresponsible.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Now is this the same Tom Harkin who LIED about his military record? That Tom Harkin?
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Boeing should cease operations until this decision is reversed. Why would any company want to set up operations here if it is going to have to kowtow to the government as to where it can operate?
I suspect the NLRB would rather have Boeing build a new plant in China.
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