Joe Nocera on why the NLRB going after Boeing is All Wrong

Boeing’s aircraft assembly has long been done by its unionized labor force in Puget Sound, Wash. Most of the new Dreamliners will be built in Puget Sound as well. But with the plane so far behind schedule, Boeing decided to spend $750 million to open the South Carolina facility. Between the two plants, the company hopes to build 10 Dreamliners a month.

That’s the plan, at least. The Obama administration, however, has a different plan. In April, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing, accusing it of opening the South Carolina plant to retaliate against the union, which has a history of striking at contract time. The N.L.R.B.’s proposed solution, believe it or not, is to move all the Dreamliner production back to Puget Sound, leaving those 5,000 workers in South Carolina twiddling their thumbs.

Seriously, when has a government agency ever tried to dictate where a company makes its products? I can’t ever remember it happening.

Read it all.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, * South Carolina, Corporations/Corporate Life, Economy, Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market, Law & Legal Issues

4 comments on “Joe Nocera on why the NLRB going after Boeing is All Wrong

  1. IchabodKunkleberry says:

    Why shouldn’t a government agency – in this case the NLRB – decide
    where Boeing can build their airplanes ? That shining example of the
    centralized command economy (the Soviet Union) decided for
    decades where labor and manufacturing resources were to be
    located. Wasn’t that a great success ?
    It’s just an attempt by the current administration to ingratiate
    itself with the unions.

  2. Cennydd13 says:

    Another shining example of governmental interference.

  3. Denise says:

    Let’s see. Boeing has built a new factory in Charleston and hired Americans to build the airplanes. Now the government says they can’t do that in South Carolina, they must go back to Seattle. Does this remind anyone of a Laurel and Hardy movie script? Only this time we are dealing with the lives of Americans in South Carolina and a company that just wants to get on with its work providing jobs for them and maybe making a few dollars for its stock holders while they build a few airplanes. And, of course, who better to help do that but the government of the United States of America, currently led by the smartest man in the world?

  4. Capt. Father Warren says:

    [i] Republicans won’t pass anything that might stimulate job growth because they are so ideologically opposed to federal spending[/i]

    Translation:

    Obama owned congress for two years and passed every spending, regulatory, and social engineering bill he wanted. And the economy took off like a rocket, unemployment disappeared, riches flowed from every water faucet.

    Then those nasty republicans came back and took away a small part of Obama’s credit card which caused us to fall immediately back into depression.

    Yep, keep running with that story. It might be a winner……..or not.