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The logican extension of the NLRB’s position is that one must never open a business in a Non right to work state. It is too dangerous.

And “if” ice cold drinks came out of my butt, I’d be a soda machine. What we have here is a story about something that might happen. in the USA, you can seek legal referees for almost anything. Whether you’ll win is a different story entirely. this is why those wacky “man sues…” stories are so stupid. They show that people can waste the court’s time, but not that the law is bad.

As far as ayn rand goes… That’s economics for the short bus crowd which isnunable to get their heads around that economics 102 concept of “externalities.” ayn rand is naive in the extreme.

As an employee of said company, although not part of IAM (I’m SPEEA – the Engineer’s union) I’ll offer some context (I sit next to a gal who’s husband is IAM):

– The IAM folks seem to relish striking. Outside their union hall in Everett – across the street from the 747, 777 and 787 factory, they have a statue. It’s of 3 guys working on airplanes and represents the pride they take in building the finest commercial aircraft in the world. Oops…no, fooled you – that’s what it would be if the IAM weren’t run by a bunch of twits. It’s actually of 3 guys carrying picket signs around a burn barrel. Yes, they glorify striking.

They always settle for the same thing: the exact same economic “best and final” that the company made before the strike, plus a bonus that more or less covers the lost wages from the strike. The clowns view it as “free” vacation time.

SPEEA isn’t much better, although it’s far less militant. This last time the contract was up, in ’09, right after the IAM shut down the company for 2 months, they pushed through a 20% raise for the engineers over the 4 year term. They had the company over a barrel, and instead of being magnanimous and going for a status quo contract or only squeezing a little, given the tough economy, they chose to screw the company.

Mind you, I don’t mind the higher pay on a personal level, yet I wonder about the long haul and what’s good for my employment and career 20 years from now. I can’t help but have the feeling that Boeing is going to go the way of the Detroit auto makers. They (SPEEA and IAM leadership) whine and moan yet the simple fact is we working stiffs here have it SO good. This place is a gold mine, period. Instead of 20% over the 4 years, substantially less than that would have sufficed given the economy. SPEEA even could have asked for more profit sharing instead of the guaranteed, since the unions always whine when the company is doing well (“look at the profits and we get nothing” is the usual refrain) – put up or shut up on that unions – take the profit share when profits are fat, suffer when they’re not. But no….the ratchet up of the wages is always the union way.

In the meantime, Canada and Brazil have growing aerospace industries (Bombardier and Embraier respectively). Both currently produce regional jets and are entering the lower end of the “large” commercial aircraft market currently dominated by the 737 and Airbus A320. Its only a matter of time until they step up to the middle of the market where the real money is (787 / A330 / A350 sized product). Of course, once they do, it’s too late for Boeing. Airbus will continue to suck at the teat of the European tax payer, so they’re insulated. China is getting in the game as well, although their product to date is still crap – they have the money and patience to eventually come up with, or steal, something good. Japan is always lurking in the wings as well.

If the IAM and SPEEA had any long term sense, they wouldn’t take the Eastern Airlines Pilots Union approach (remember Eastern Airlines – yeah, bankrupt and folded long ago) – their (the pilots) mind set was comically short sighted – “full pay ’till the last day”. Yeah…how’d that work out for you again? The IAM and SPEEA are moving down the same path, some how thinking (or not) that the competition will stand still, and we’ll always be the best, and we’ll have pricing power (even in the duopoly w. Airbus there is some pricing power). Well, one day, we’ll all wake up to realize that those damn Canadians and Brazilians are actually producing good jets that cover the same market segments as ours, and are 20% less expensive to buy. And the only orders we’ll get are because the other guys have no production slots left for the next 5 years (hmmm….sounds like McDonnell Douglass commercial in its dying days).

In the meantime, on a personal level, I’m keeping the decks clear, my cost of living low, and saving prodigiously for the day when the IAM and SPEEA drive the company into the ground. I count the Boeing pension as zero in my retirement plans. If it’s there, hey great – It’ll be gravy. Chances are it’ll be driven into the ground as the company decays like the Big Three did.

So, back to the issue at hand: As noted in the linked Workplace article or comments – the company is actually hiring and expanding the 787 line here in Washington with a 2nd surge line. The SC line is in addition to those 2 lines here.

What did the IAM expect after they beat the Company 4 times, that they’d fall into the IAM’s arms professing undying love for them and offering yet another line here in Washington? The IAM had their chance – the company offered a long term contract with a no strike clause. The IAM said no like the petulant children they are. Company shrugged and went to a better place. IAM throws a hissy fit and calls in favors from their bought cronies and you get what is going on right now.

Yes, Mike, but in this case the complaint and the referee are one in the same:

“It wants an NLRB administrative law judge to force the company to transfer the production back to Washington.”

I’ll admit to not having any posteriorly implanted soda cans, but from here this looks like a stacked deck, a payback for union political contributions and down right un-American to me.

The NLRB is and always will be a political animal beholden to the party in power, as the NLRA is presently constituted. I started with the Board in the Eisenhower years, and stayed through JFK into the LBJ period; from there I was in private practice and heading up the Labor and Employment sector in a major retailer into the 90’s, when I returned to private practice. Stare Decisis in the field of NLRB law is “what did it say yesterday?” Progressive activists at the Board inhabited and inhabit the entrenched staffs of the General Counsel, and survived Republican and Democrat administrations, and never lost sight of their “mission” in life, the advancement of organized labor. (When I started, there were several older hands wistfully longing for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act’s amendments to the NLRA.)
Under the Democrat regimes, the Board, usually led by the General Counsel, would lurch sharply left, trying to ease the organizing of the unorganized. They would be followed by Republican appointees, whose term in office mostly consisted of attempts to steer the Board back to the middle, but these attempts were attacked loudly by the champions of the Left.
(The result of this back and forth, from the eyes of a progressive, is an abject failure of purpose. The non agricultural, non government, and non transportation work force in the USA, the constituency the Board must deal in, has less than 7% of its employees in unions. That is down from about 35% in its heyday. Organizing campaigns these days are almost non existent, and the current Board must scramble for validity of purpose to keep getting funded.)
In all of this sturm und drang, the Board’s decisions were subject to review by the Courts of Appeal, as well as SCOTUS. As we all know, this can have mixed results, depending upon your point of view, and I fear the massive overreach by the Acting General Counsel in the Boeing Complaint will be one of those cases.
The Complaint will be heard before an ALJ, usually a product of long service in the entrenched bureaucracy with the Board, where the odds are that individual will adopt the ill conceived theory of the AGC. From there it will proceed to be appealed to the Board itself, a group thoroughly in line with the AGC’s theory, and least on the part of the Democrat stalwarts appointed by Obama, including the former GC of the SEIU.
Thus it is only in the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the AGC’s overreach will be judicially reviewed. Forgive me if I am not sanguine over the chances of it being overruled.
It should eventually reach the Supreme Court, where as of today there is a 5-4 chance of reason prevailing, but that is several years in the offing, and look at the turmoil the case will stir up in industry in the interim.

The NLRB is and always will be a political animal beholden to the party in power, as the NLRA is presently constituted. I started with the Board in the Eisenhower years, and stayed through JFK into the LBJ period; from there I was in private practice and heading up the Labor and Employment sector in a major retailer into the 90’s, when I returned to private practice. Stare Decisis in the field of NLRB law is “what did it say yesterday?” Progressive activists at the Board inhabited and inhabit the entrenched staffs of the General Counsel in DC and the regional offices, and survived Republican and Democrat administrations, and never lost sight of their “mission” in life, the advancement of organized labor. (When I started, there were several older hands wistfully longing for the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act’s amendments to the NLRA.)
Under the Democrat regimes, the Board, usually led by the General Counsel, would lurch sharply left, trying to ease the organizing of the unorganized. They would be followed by Republican appointees, whose term in office mostly consisted of attempts to steer the Board back to the middle, but these attempts were attacked loudly by the champions of the Left.
(The result of this back and forth, from the eyes of a progressive, is an abject failure of purpose. The non agricultural, non government, and non transportation work force in the USA, the constituency the Board must deal in, has less than 7% of its employees in unions. That is down from about 35% in its heyday. Organizing campaigns these days are almost non existent, and the current Board must scramble for validity of purpose to keep getting funded.)
In all of this sturm und drang, the Board’s decisions were subject to review by the Courts of Appeal, as well as SCOTUS. As we all know, this can have mixed results, depending upon your point of view, and I fear the massive overreach by the Acting General Counsel in the Boeing Complaint will be one of those cases.
The Complaint will be heard before an ALJ, usually a product of long service in the entrenched bureaucracy with the Board, where the odds are that individual will adopt the ill conceived theory of the AGC. From there it will proceed to be appealed to the Board itself, a group thoroughly in line with the AGC’s theory, and least on the part of the Democrat stalwarts appointed by Obama, including the former GC of the SEIU.
Thus it is only in the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the AGC’s overreach will be judicially reviewed. Forgive me if I am not sanguine over the chances of it being overruled.
It should eventually reach the Supreme Court, where as of today there is a 5-4 chance of reason prevailing, but that is several years in the offing, and look at the turmoil the case will stir up in industry in the interim.

I have been in unions (pre-college) and grew up in a union household and town. I have been a professional all my life (post-college) and actually believe there is a need and a place and a time for unions. The issue I have with unions is their leadership is STUPID. Just as “No Name Guy” pointed out, the leadership has no concept of how a business must operate to remain a viable entity. What they fail or refuse to realize is, that at best, unions are nothing more than a parasite. Without the host body, the company, their reason for existing disappears. The union cannot survive if there is no employer to pay wages and benefits. There is a need and a use for unions, they need to figure out how to profitably co-exist with the employer such that they too can make a profit and remain in business. They could go a long way in repairing the relationship if they were only to police their own, meaning the union should get rid of the lazy, worthless worker on their own.

There is no doubt that unions were a grear force, mostly for good, prior to, say, the 1960s, notably in the areas of employee safety and fair pay. Sadly, since then, they have become a negative drag on the economy and are, in large part, for the destruction of several once great airlines (Eastern), and the decimation of the domestic auto industry (GM and Chrysler, especially) with their cumbersome work rules, paying people not to work and refusing to help solve the problems in pensions and health care. Public sector unions, especially in red states where they control the elected officials, are the number one force to blame for excessive pensions and benefits that threaten state and local governments’ solvency. Teachers’ unions have impeded any meaningful educational reform, such as the ability of school systems to terminate incompetent teachers. What is really going on here is an attempt by the wholely-owned subsidiary of the AFL-CIO, aka the Obama Administration , via federal administrative edict power, to wipe out right to work laws and to punish right to work states, which generally vote Republican.

[…] The newsmagazine reports on the “stunned” reaction of the business community to the complaint, and editorially calls on President Obama to condemn the “loony-left complaint against America’s biggest exporter.” Earlier here and here. […]