Boeing Builds Plant in SC to Avoid Unions.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... full.story

SEATTLE/CHICAGO (Reuters) - Boeing Co
Tuesday asked a court to throw out a government case that
accuses the plane-maker of putting a production line for the
787 Dreamliner in South Carolina to punish its unionized
Washington-based workers for past labor strikes.

The case has become the fulcrum of a larger conflict
between supporters of labor union rights and those who believe
U.S. companies should have the freedom to build factories where
they want.

A hearing before an administrative law judge started
Tuesday in Seattle, the home of Boeing's commercial airplane
division. The process could take months, judge Clifford
Anderson warned.

The National Labor Relations Board, a government agency
that is independent but dominated by Democrats, has ``ample
evidence'' that Boeing acted in retaliation, one of its lawyers
told the judge on Tuesday.

Boeing immediately filed a motion to dismiss the case in
court. A lawyer representing the company said Boeing had
actually added jobs in the Seattle area since the Charleston,
South Carolina, plant was conceived, so no workers had suffered
any harm, and therefore the complaint had no basis in law.

He characterized the NLRB complaint as ``rather a strange
runaway shop case,'' a labor term used to describe the
relocation of facilities to avoid union involvement.

Addressing about 20 lawyers and another 60 or so people in
the courtroom, Anderson urged both sides to consider a
settlement.

Both Boeing and the International Association of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers, District Lodge 751 (IAM), which
represents the company's workers in Washington and filed the
original complaint against Boeing in 2010, said on Tuesday they
are open to settlement talks.

But neither side seems willing to budge on its stance, and
sources close to the matter said on Tuesday that a quick
settlement was unlikely.

Neither Boeing nor the NLRB said what it was spending on
the litigation. The NLRB has seven lawyers on the case.

Lafe Solomon, the NLRB's acting general counsel, will
testify on Friday in South Carolina at a field hearing on the
complaint before the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform. He had initially declined the request for
his testimony, citing the ongoing open case.

``This is a very simple case, and it's an egregious case,''
the general counsel for the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers said on a conference call with
reporters on Tuesday.

``Work stoppages are protected by law as part of concerted
activity. So is the collective bargaining process,'' IAM General
Counsel Christopher Corson added.

Boeing Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney has weighed in
on the complaint several times, saying the NLRB has overreached
its authority.

Boeing shares were up 2.5 percent at $74.74 on Tuesday
afternoon.


INTIMIDATION?

Tom Wroblewski, local IAM president in Seattle, has said
Boeing opened the South Carolina line to ``intimidate our
members with the idea that the company would take away their
work unless they made concessions at the bargaining table.''

The $750 million 787 plant opened on Friday.

The company has said it did not violate the law by putting
its second 787 production line in South Carolina, where workers
will assemble three planes each month. The South Carolina jobs
are new to Boeing and are not a relocation of work previously
done in Washington, it says.

Boeing said that if it loses the NLRB case, it would be
forced to assemble those three planes in Washington, where it
is set to produce seven 787s per month.

``It means a headache, but it's one they'll probably be able
to get around,'' said analyst Richard Aboulafia of
Virginia-based Teal Group. ``It's going to be very
politicized.''

The 2009 decision to open the 787 line in South Carolina
came after an aggressive campaign by workers in Washington's
Puget Sound area to keep the project there.

The IAM went on strike for 58 days in 2008 over a contract
dispute. The strike led to one of the costly delays that have
put the 787 program over budget and about three years behind
schedule. Boeing also blames glitches in its global supply
chain for the delays.

The 787, a lightweight, carbon-composite aircraft, is set
for first delivery in the third quarter of this year.

The NLRB and Boeing expect the first round of hearings
before the administrative law judge to take weeks or months.
The losing side may then appeal, first to the NLRB board, then
to a federal court, and finally to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The first several days of the hearing are likely to be
largely procedural, featuring no testimony.

J. Michael Luttig, Boeing's general counsel and a former
appeals court judge, has said he anticipates losing before an
administrative law judge, but prevailing at the U.S. Court of
Appeals.


REPERCUSSIONS

The dispute has drawn the attention of pro-business
politicians and industry leaders, who believe the charge
against Boeing makes a broader statement about U.S. government
support for business.

John Engler, former Michigan governor and President of
Business Roundtable, an association of U.S. CEOs, said on
Tuesday the NLRB charge weakens the general business outlook.

``If suddenly (we get) more decisions like the NLRB decision
that they announced relative to Boeing, that goes in the
opposite direction,'' Engler said on a conference call. ``That
dims optimism.''

South Carolina Republicans last week complained that the
NLRB case threatens industry and jobs in their state. Senator
Lindsey Graham told Reuters that the labor relations board is
''stacked with union stooges.''

Senator Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican, has said he
will propose legislation prohibiting the NLRB from taking
similar action against other companies.
(Editing by Gary Hill)

[weemadando]

Oh man.

Haven't US unions heard of national collective bargaining?

[Simon_Jester]

Structurally, they're so busted up that it's hard to achieve nationwide coverage, especially in an industry that's concentrated in a few areas like aircraft manufacture.

[aerius]

Oh man.

Haven't US unions heard of national collective bargaining?

They can try, but then they'll just end up like the automakers where a bunch of factories get moved outside the US.
I'm sure Canada will be happy to host a new aircraft assembly facility.

[weemadando]

Boeing couldn't run without their pork. Leaving the US wholesale is insanity.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

What I don't get is why this is even an issue. If you're costing me money to do business with you. I'm not going to do business with you. End of discussion. You can think it's "pay back" or "revenge". I call it the free market. I'm going to maximize my time and resources by concentrating them in places where there won't be strikes and I won't have to pay that much. Basic economics. Why do these Union fucks think that they're so privileged that Boeing must blow it's money on their collective asses?

[Duckie]

What I don't get is why this is even an issue. If you're costing me money to do business with you. I'm not going to do business with you. End of discussion. You can think it's "pay back" or "revenge". I call it the free market. I'm going to maximize my time and resources by concentrating them in places where there won't be strikes and I won't have to pay that much. Basic economics. Why do these Union fucks think that they're so privileged that Boeing must blow it's money on their collective asses?

I completely agree on all counts, Mr. Vanderbilt.

[Hawkwings]

Even if the SC workers were unionized, they'd still probably build a plant there. Labor is just cheaper there.

[Simon_Jester]

What I don't get is why this is even an issue. If you're costing me money to do business with you. I'm not going to do business with you. End of discussion. You can think it's "pay back" or "revenge". I call it the free market. I'm going to maximize my time and resources by concentrating them in places where there won't be strikes and I won't have to pay that much. Basic economics. Why do these Union fucks think that they're so privileged that Boeing must blow it's money on their collective asses?

Because they don't want to be reduced into serfdom by degrees, and believe that there is a legitimate public interest in assuring that they're not?

I mean, we've had decades of "I call it the free market" in the US; union membership is immensely low and many industries (notably service) aren't unionized at all. Are we better off for this?

There was a time, admittedly a brief one, only a generation or two, when the state perceived the existence of unions and the interests of labor to be in some degree balanced with the desire of business, as an important part of the public interest. Corporations were expected to play along with labor to some degree, as part of the price of doing business. If they didn't like doing business under those terms, they could stop trying. You can think it's "statism" or "communism." I call it "not living in an anarchist hellhole."

If business can organize, labor should be able to organize to prevent business from screwing over everyone who isn't a businessman. And if businesses decide they don't want to deal with organized labor, they should accept that they can't do business. If you can't deal with the idea that there are constraints on your power over others, you have no place doing anything important in civilized society.

[TimothyC]

I completely agree on all counts, Mr. Vanderbilt.

When one of the union 'demands' is that all future planes be built in unionized plants the company has every interest in non-union plants. I'll also note so far there hasn't been a cut in production in the Seattle plants.

Edit: Not saying Boeing is right, but I understand their stance and the reasoning - they don't want to be stuck with a single source of labor.

[weemadando]

If business can organize, labor should be able to organize to prevent business from screwing over everyone who isn't a businessman. And if businesses decide they don't want to deal with organized labor, they should accept that they can't do business. If you can't deal with the idea that there are constraints on your power over others, you have no place doing anything important in civilized society.

That's possibly the best three sentences on the matter of unionisation and labour rights that I've read.

[Sea Skimmer]

I fail to see any reason why a company should have to give a damn about a union's lack of desire or ability to try to unionize new workers in selecting a site for a second assembly line. By this logic the fucking auto industry should have never ever been allowed to leave Detroit ever once they started to be unionized, and I'd love someone to explain why that would not be the case. Forming a union is not a right to unlimited work. If they fired everyone and moved an existing plant the union might have a case, but that's not whats happening at all. As for moving to another country, much of the 787 already is built in other countries, including several European countries, Italy, France, Sweden, not known for crushing strikes in recent years. Its just that all assembly is done in the US. Fully 35% of the thing is coming from Japan alone, a bunch more from Korea which is I suspect the most viable overseas site for assembly.

And you really got to love the labor board pulling this after the new assembly building was already built, and years after it was announced. Boeing BTW has current plans to split work 6 planes per month in Washington and 4 per month in South Carolina, how unfair!

[weemadando]

I'm fairly certain that Italy, France and Sweden have labour laws that leave the US looking third world, so the point about getting stuff from there is moot.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

They can try, but then they'll just end up like the automakers where a bunch of factories get moved outside the US.

Good for the auto-industry. Saves them money, makes my Jeep less expensive.

I completely agree on all counts, Mr. Vanderbilt.

Because they don't want to be reduced into serfdom by degrees, and believe that there is a legitimate public interest in assuring that they're not?

I personally believe that cheaper planes means cheaper airline ticket prices, freight prices, mail prices and cheaper military aircraft (if of course congress doesn't fuck up the budget again) which in turns means less money spent directly by the consumer on services and indirectly on military hardware. The consumer isn't served better by the few people who work in the aircraft industry getting special privileges because they're in a union. Note that the unionized plant is still in operation AND jobs are planning on being created in south carolina.

If business can organize, labor should be able to organize to prevent business from screwing over everyone who isn't a businessman. And if businesses decide they don't want to deal with organized labor, they should accept that they can't do business. If you can't deal with the idea that there are constraints on your power over others, you have no place doing anything important in civilized society.

I agree that workers should be able to organize to promote common interests. What I don't agree on is the assumption that if you want to conduct business it must be done with organized labour and that labour feels that they should force business (because that's what they're trying to do) to conduct business a certain way outside of their operating area. If a business wants to change where they move a plant to cut costs than so be it. It's that organizations right. That's like telling me I have to buy groceries from a certain store because I used to shop there a lot but I changed my mind because the Wallyworld across town is cheaper and it's hurting the old grocers business.

Boeing couldn't run without their pork. Leaving the US wholesale is insanity.

Businesses aren't in the business of providing services or products. They exist to make money. End of discussion. If they did stuff for free or at cost they'd be a non-for-profit. They see a need provide it plus a fee. I'm sure that you don't work for the good of wherever you work. You work because you get a check at the end of the week.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm fairly certain that Italy, France and Sweden have labour laws that leave the US looking third world, so the point about getting stuff from there is moot.

No its not moot at all. Unions are trying to argue that Boeing is vindictively anti union on the exact same project that saw it expand into heavily unionized countries and while not actually taking a damn thing away from the union in the first place. That does not compute. I'd fucking LOVE to see how this reasoning would apply to say, a coal mine company opening new mines. No you must move the coal to the existing mines, then let us mine it again!

[aerius]

This is the kind of bullshit that makes lots of people hate unions and want to see them get busted. Are they losing their jobs? No. Are they taking pay cuts? No. Are they losing hours? No. Is their workplace getting outsourced? No. Are they losing their benefits? No. Are their work conditions going to shit? No. Then what the fuck is their problem? That this new plant may in some yet to be determined way cause some or all of the above to happen?

[Big Phil]

As a native Seattleite, I can tell you that here, locally, citizens have little to no sympathy for the Machinists Union. Their decision to go on strike in the middle of the Great Recession because Boeing didn't want to give them pay raises for a few years, coupled with decades of them pressing for benefits way out of balance with what anyone else in the private sector receives, really turned a lot of people off. That's not to say Boeing management are saints - as far as I can tell with the 787 they're a bunch of greedy, incompetent fuckwits.

The problem is that the Machinists Union has a very well known (although I question how accurate it is) reputation for protection lazy, incompetent workers - an acquaintance of mine who worked as an engineer at Boeing told the story of watching a worker take 30 minutes to cross the floor of the plant because he stopped every few feet to talk to someone - and protecting the more senior union members and union leadership at the expense of more junior employees.

The Seattle Times, years back, did a piece about the Machinists Union, and one of the guys they interviewed had "worked" at Boeing for 15 years, and spent about 10 of those years laid off while more senior Union members were working. I tried to find that story, but it's been 15 or so years and I couldn't find it, but assuming it was true, it doesn't speak well that Boeing is paying the union to pay a guy who doesn't actually work for them... for 10 years out of 15. That's pretty stupid.

[aerius]

Nice, if that reputation is accurate it sounds just like a government union, complete with protecting lazy jackasses based on seniority and having "workers" who aren't working.

[Simon_Jester]

I fail to see any reason why a company should have to give a damn about a union's lack of desire or ability to try to unionize new workers in selecting a site for a second assembly line. By this logic the fucking auto industry should have never ever been allowed to leave Detroit ever once they started to be unionized, and I'd love someone to explain why that would not be the case.

Now that is fair... assuming the labor laws in South Carolina don't make it infeasible to do so. South Carolina is a right-to-fire state, remember?

I recognize that there are problems with the Machinists' Union up in Washington, but I am very dissatisfied with the trend of the unions being systematically isolated, dismantled, and demonized while corporations shift out from under them. I think it hurts the country overall, even if you can find plenty of individual cases that justify dissatisfaction with the unions.

I personally believe that cheaper planes means cheaper airline ticket prices, freight prices, mail prices and cheaper military aircraft (if of course congress doesn't fuck up the budget again) which in turns means less money spent directly by the consumer on services and indirectly on military hardware. The consumer isn't served better by the few people who work in the aircraft industry getting special privileges because they're in a union.

The consumer, who is generally also an employee, has been served very badly by the rollback of unions in the US. The consumer typically works longer hours at lower or equivalent real wages to their parents' generation; the consumer enjoys fewer benefits and is more vulnerable to arbitrary firings that leave a larger fraction of the population constantly searching for work even in times of normal unemployment.

The consumer is not a separate person from the laborer. Far more often than not, they are one and the same. It is the height of stupidity to harm the laborer for the sake of the consumer: the person you're screwing may be yourself.

If business can organize, labor should be able to organize to prevent business from screwing over everyone who isn't a businessman. And if businesses decide they don't want to deal with organized labor, they should accept that they can't do business. If you can't deal with the idea that there are constraints on your power over others, you have no place doing anything important in civilized society.

I agree that workers should be able to organize to promote common interests. What I don't agree on is the assumption that if you want to conduct business it must be done with organized labour and that labour feels that they should force business (because that's what they're trying to do) to conduct business a certain way outside of their operating area. If a business wants to change where they move a plant to cut costs than so be it. It's that organizations right. That's like telling me I have to buy groceries from a certain store because I used to shop there a lot but I changed my mind because the Wallyworld across town is cheaper and it's hurting the old grocers business.

Really, what we should have is a unionized society that would provide general protection to all employees, rather than to a handful of industries in a handful of places... but we don't, because we've been systematically dismantling unions in this country for decades.

Despite your claims, I question whether we are better off for that.

Boeing couldn't run without their pork. Leaving the US wholesale is insanity.

Businesses aren't in the business of providing services or products. They exist to make money. End of discussion. If they did stuff for free or at cost they'd be a non-for-profit. They see a need provide it plus a fee. I'm sure that you don't work for the good of wherever you work. You work because you get a check at the end of the week.

How is that a response, as opposed to vague quasi-Randist bullshit?

The argument here is that Boeing could not function if it weren't for US business directed to it from the government. Their bottom line depends on it. Therefore, it would be stupid for them to become a foreign corporation, or even one dominated by foreign production, because this would cut out a big chunk of their customer base. Which is the sort of thing that you aren't supposed to do while huffing and puffing about the free market.

[weemadando]

Boeing couldn't run without their pork. Leaving the US wholesale is insanity.

Businesses aren't in the business of providing services or products. They exist to make money. End of discussion. If they did stuff for free or at cost they'd be a non-for-profit. They see a need provide it plus a fee. I'm sure that you don't work for the good of wherever you work. You work because you get a check at the end of the week.

...the hell?

I was just addressing the point that even if they wanted cheap labour, they couldn't just move overseas. They've got a shitload of a defence contracts that the gov't wouldn't let out of the country, not to mention the shitstorm that would come up against them in Congress next time someone tried to block a purchase of Airbus jets on their behalf.

[K. A. Pital]

Boeing also gets lots of government subsidies to run (it constantly fights with Airbus over who gets more billions of illegal subsidies in the courts, how the hell could people miss that). It just can't leave the US of A, even if it wanted.

That would ruin the company there and then.

[weemadando]

Boeing also gets lots of government subsidies to run (it constantly fights with Airbus over who gets more billions of illegal subsidies in the courts, how the hell could people miss that). It just can't leave the US of A, even if it wanted.

That would ruin the company there and then.

Hence my use of the phrase "Pork".

[Sea Skimmer]

Now that is fair... assuming the labor laws in South Carolina don't make it infeasible to do so. South Carolina is a right-to-fire state, remember?

That doesn’t stop you from having a union, especially not a strike happy union. They fire people for no good reason, then that’s a an actual reason to strike. You might recall that when unions got started they had no legal protections at all. These people claim to be highly skilled hard to replace workers, if they aren’t and can be on a project worth tens of billions a year, then maybe they should stop deluding themselves that they are so special.

And I was wrong, Everett is getting 7 out of 10 planes per month, not 6, so awful. Bullshit like this is precisely why everyone is turning against unions in the US and has been for near fifty years. Unions without moderation act as monopolies. Monopolies are bad, period or else we should be worshiping Standard Oil for providing stable prices.

Unions do protect workers rights, they also protect lazy idiots who don’t work, and still dock the paychecks of people who work so hard they’d be the last person to be fired anyway. In many unions the workers literally are NOT ALLOWED to report or in any way name the people who don’t work. Not to the boss, not to the union leaders, and if they do ever name a name they actually get fired for doing it by being expelled from the union and thus no longer allowed to work. That's in many union contracts. And of course you must pay your union dues, you have no option otherwise as the money is taken from your paycheck before you ever see it. Great fucking system. I had several good friends who worked in an environment like that and they all quit in disgust because every day they worked hard, and then had to listen to the shop foreman bitch that not enough work was getting done. That was of course because of all the do nothing idiots they worked with in a situation in which literally nothing would or could change without the union voting to change its contract, nor would they ever get more money out of it except by eventually working hard enough to be promoted to a management position , at which point they are no longer in the union could be fired, but would be totally unable to force the workers under them to do anything. They had a lot of turnover in the mangers as you might expect. If a worker would not work you could do nothing. That’s what a union can do. If you have all good people its not a problem; but where on earth do you expect to hire hundreds of completely honest hard workers and keep them all that way until retirement?

In this case we have zero credible damages, and indeed Boeing has said if production rates are increased both lines will get more planes and this would require hiring new full time workers anyway, and still the unions bitch. Fuck them. I have real sympathy for unions, and precisely because I don't want them to go away completely stupidly like this should just not be allowed. The sense of entitlement to more then fair treatment is absurd. This isn’t the 1920s when coal miners who are literally being worked to death even in a GOOD mine and who can be replaced at the drop of the hat want protection from being crushed by heavy machinery or incinerated in an explosion. I predict this case will initially rule in favor of Boeing and then be appealed to death for a decade.

Boeing also gets lots of government subsidies to run (it constantly fights with Airbus over who gets more billions of illegal subsidies in the courts, how the hell could people miss that). It just can't leave the US of A, even if it wanted.

That would ruin the company there and then.

You really think another country wouldn’t dish out subsidies to get a plant that valuable moved in? HA. How do you think so much of the 787 came to be produced overseas in the first place? People offered serious subsidy money and offered to buy a lot more 787s if work was done locally on top of it. The only reason Boeing wouldn’t move the whole thing overseas is because then they just might loose out on the US commercial market vs. air bus, and its just not going to save them all that much money to do it. But that doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t ever dream of it. The Boeing commercial airliner business and defense work are pretty well separate and the political storm would blow over in time because at this point the US is down to Boeing and Lockheed for aircraft, and nobody wants to give Lockheed even more work.

[Sea Skimmer]

I should also add to the rant, that it used to be decades ago that union members would simply police themselves, by beating up lazy people and even murdering them at times. Maybe we should bring that back and people will like unions in the US? Of course this was also when the police dealt with most crimes by beating people up, the juvenile court system, welfare and a few other things simply didn't exist and thousands of live nuclear missiles ringed American cities and occasionally caught on fire.

[K. A. Pital]

You really think another country wouldn’t dish out subsidies to get a plant that valuable moved in? HA.

No. Not one with a workable air industry, anyways. Or so I thought.

How do you think so much of the 787 came to be produced overseas in the first place? People offered serious subsidy money and offered to buy a lot more 787s if work was done locally on top of it.

Who gave subsidies to Boeing, outside the USA?

The only reason Boeing wouldn’t move the whole thing overseas is because then they just might loose out on the US commercial market vs. air bus, and its just not going to save them all that much money to do it. But that doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t ever dream of it.

The US subsidizes Boeing to win in a strategic oligopoly competition with Europe and Airbus. For a foreign nation that would mean jack and shit; also, a foreign nation doesn't have that much money to throw around.