Nine Attorneys General Battle Feds over Boeing Plant

Picture this. You run a company that manufactures airplanes in Washington State. Your plant is unionized, which eats away at your profits. As a consequence, you decide to open an additional plant in South Carolina - a 'right to work' state where employees cannot be compelled to join a union. Now, imagine that your new plant is built and as your making preparations to get it up and running, a federal body - the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) - tells you to cease and desist manufacturing a certain type of airliner in that plant based on complaints the NLRB received from union leaders.

Nine state Attorneys General have taken notice and have sent the NLRB a strong letter regarding this decision.

Via Fox News:

Nine state attorneys general sounded off in a letter to the National Labor Relations Board, calling a complaint it filed against Boeing for opening a production facility in South Carolina an assault on their states' economies.

After receiving a complaint from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the NLRB claims Boeing participated in unfair labor practices by threatening to open new, non-union facilities elsewhere when workers went on strike at the company's Washington state production facility in 2008.

Boeing is slated to open its newest 787 airliner assembly line this summer in South Carolina, a "right-to-work" state, in which employee's can't be forced to join a union to work at unionized plants. In Washington state and the 28 states without "right-to-work" laws, once a majority of workers have opted to join a union, everyone can be required to join and pay dues. That gives labor groups an advantage in organizing.

"This complaint represents an assault upon the constitutional right of free speech, and the ability of our states to create jobs and recruit industry. Your ill-conceived retaliatory action seeks to destroy our citizens' right to work," the letter from the attorneys general reads.

The NLRB complaint attempts to keep Boeing from building 787 airliners in the Palmetto State plant, not shut it down. But the company designed the facility to produce three of those type of airplanes each month.

Amazingly, Boeing wasn't even planning to shut down its plant in Washington, which it says grew by 2,000 jobs since the company announced it would be opening a South Carolina plant.

HERE is the letter.

h/t Free Republic