VIDEO: NLRB Slaps Boeing for Punishing Strikers

The National Labor Relations Board told Boeing this week that it can’t retaliate against workers who exercise their right to strike, a fundamental right guaranteed by labor law for 80 years.

The airplane manufacturer took work away from union shops in Washington state, shifting its production to right-to-work South Carolina, where executives had already crushed the Machinists union.

Boeing execs left no doubt about why they moved work, telling a reporter, “We cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years.”

After Machinists struck for 57 days in 2008 over the company’s concession demands and out-of-control outsourcing, Boeing waged an aggressive battle to pit workers against each other and demanded a no-strike pledge from the union.

Washington state had coughed up $3 billion in subsidies to try to secure production of the new Dreamliner 787, and the Machinists offered a 10-year no-strike pledge.

But that wasn’t good enough for Boeing, which chose to build in South Carolina instead. Carolina officials, desperate for industry, laid out a $450 million welcome mat to entice the company. South Carolina’s unionization rate, 4.6 percent—sixth from lowest in the country—was part of their sales pitch.

Message to Law-Breakers

Union leaders in Washington state cheered the ruling, which told Boeing to move its work back to the Puget Sound. A legal fight, of course, is coming.

“It’ll obviously be a long, drawn-out appeal process,” said Joel Funfar, a Boeing engineer and council chair for the Engineers union (SPEEA). “But it’s a good message to corporate America that they need to obey labor law.”

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Machinists Local 751 spokeswoman Connie Kelliher said the union wants Boeing to stop threatening workers that they’ll lose their work if they stand up for themselves.

“If Boeing is allowed to break the law, other companies will adopt its tactic, so this is a victory for all workers,” she said.

The NLRB has hardly been a worker’s best friend. Long delays and weak remedies have meant worker rights steamrolled by corporate America and the billion-dollar union-busting industry it employs.

Sandy Pope, reform candidate for president of the Teamsters, went on Fox Business Thursday to explain to the hosts that Boeing isn’t exactly the only company that threatens, intimidates, and retaliates against its workers—whether it’s during organizing, in contract bargaining—hell, every day of the week.

The issue isn’t really the right to strike, Pope pointed out: The fight is about who controls the economy. Anyone who stands up to corporate America gets targeted.

And that’s why we need strong unions, Pope said.

Jenny Brown contributed to this piece.

Mischa Gaus was the editor of Labor Notes from 2008 to 2012.mischagaus@gmail.com
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Comments

Jack Rafter (not verified) | 04/23/11

Although corporations have an obligation to their shareholders, they also have an obligation to their workforce. The fact that Boeing is an American corporation also gives it responsibility to ensure that America does not continue in its downward spiral. By (illegally) shifting work to a state that has accepted a lesser standard of living and lacks the balls to stand up for their rights does not necessarily fulfill Boeing's fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. It is time to recover the American standard of living that generations have fought to achieve. We cannot continually allow the greedy corporations to strip society of a decent living. Workers in Washington are not getting fat off of their paychecks, they are merely attempting to provide for their families.
To suggest that the NLRB has overstepped its authority by siding with the very people (workers) that they are there to protect is absurd. Yes, the country could use more jobs. but what we need are family sustaining jobs that spur the economy. If a worker makes more money, he has more to spend. Therefore, stimulating the economy. Reagan's idea of "trickle down economics" does not work. Blue collar workers are more likely to put the money they earn back into the economy. Higher wages also equate to higher tax revenue. (This is a subject for another day.)