Day By Day April 24, 2011 – There’s the Rub

The Boeing Vs. NLRB flap is an egregious overreach by the the Big Government of the Obama Administration.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has been running amok to do favors for organized labor under Obama, is now trying to tell Boeing where it can manufacture planes:

Boeing announced in 2007 that it planned to assemble seven 787 Dreamliner airplanes per month in the Puget Sound area of Washington state, where its employees have long been represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The company later said that it would create a second production line to assemble an additional three planes a month to address a growing backlog of orders. In October 2009, Boeing announced that it would locate that second line at the non-union facility.

In repeated statements to employees and the media, company executives cited the unionized employees’ past strike activity and the possibility of strikes occurring sometime in the future as the overriding factors in deciding to locate the second line in the non-union facility.

The NLRB launched an investigation of the transfer of second line work in response to charges filed by the Machinists union and found reasonable cause to believe that Boeing had violated two sections of the National Labor Relations Act because its statements were coercive to employees and its actions were motivated by a desire to retaliate for past strikes and chill future strike activity.

The second line is being located in South Carolina — a right to work state. As Phil Klein reports, Boeing and South Carolina senator Jim DeMint are not at all amused by this stunt by the NLRB.

And, people scoff at what Ayn Rand wrote decades ago cannot happen?

There IS the rub, John Galt.