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›NLRB Officials Defend Complaint Against Boeing

JUNE 18, 2011
By LOUISE RADNOFSKY

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.—A National Labor Relations Board official defended the organization's actions against Boeing Co. for the plane maker's decision to build a 787 Dreamliner factory in non-union South Carolina.

NLRB acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, testified at a field hearing here Friday convened by House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.). For Republicans, the Boeing case has been a chance to draw attention to what they believe is a broader pattern of the Obama administration favoring organized labor over economic growth.

"Thousands of people will be unemployed if the NLRB complaint is successful," Boeing employee Cynthia Ramaker testified. "Losing my job at Boeing will be personally catastrophic to myself and the workers at the North Charleston Boeing facility. We are home-owners, we have families that will be affected."

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called the NLRB move "an attack on states that work hard." She added: "This needs to be the last time we need to deal with this."

Mr. Solomon said that he understood that the complaint had made local workers "feel vulnerable and anxious," but that it had been brought because of concerns that Boeing had been motivated by retaliation against workers exercising their right to strike. "These are difficult economic times, and I truly regret the anxiety this case has caused them and their families," he said during his testimony. "The issuance of the complaint was not intended to harm the workers of South Carolina, but rather, to protect the rights of workers, regardless of where they are employed, to engage in activities protected by the National Labor Relations Act, without fearing discrimination."

Mr. Solomon filed a complaint in April alleging that Boeing decided to locate a new assembly line to build 787 Dreamliner jets in South Carolina because it was trying to punish union workers in Washington state for their past strikes.

Boeing says the charge is groundless and has said it will fight the case to the Supreme Court.

A Seattle court began considering the complaint this week. The administrative judge hearing the case, Clifford Anderson, has urged both parties to come to a settlement. Lawyers for Boeing and its main union went into closed-door talks Wednesday.

The complaint has sparked an angry backlash in South Carolina, where opposition to organized labor is staunch and unemployment was 10% in May. GOP lawmakers have seized on the case to make a broader case against the labor board, which they say is overstepping its authority and meddling in private business decisions in a way that could force jobs overseas. Mr. Issa's hearing, convened three miles away from the newly-opened factory, was dominated by people unhappy with Mr. Solomon's decision.

Mr. Solomon testified that he only issued the complaint after the company and the union had failed to resolve the dispute informally, and that he wanted them to reach a settlement.

He said that Boeing would have "every opportunity" to establish in court that it was unduly burdensome to attempt to relocate its assembly line, and that he believed the company was free to use the plant "any way it sees fit for nondiscriminatory reasons."

He would not be drawn into broader questions of whether a company can make decisions based on the potential for work stoppages, responding only that the complaint was about whether Boeing retaliated against Washington workers for exercising their right to strike.

Mr. Solomon had initially sought to avoid testifying because the case was in progress, but relented after Mr. Issa indicated he would issue a subpoena to demand his presence, according to letters released last week.

Boeing has said that its inability to come to a labor agreement with the union in Washington was a factor in the decision to expand elsewhere, but has denied that it was punishing workers and says it has added jobs at unionized plants in the Puget Sound area.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a freshman Republican representing the upstate of South Carolina, challenged Mr. Solomon on whether any jobs had been lost in Washington as a result of Boeing's expansion elsewhere. Mr. Solomon said that none had.

Democrats said at the hearing that the committee risked interfering with a pending case and the rights of its participants to have it resolved fairly.

Rep. Bruce Braley (D., Iowa) said after the hearing that Republicans had made "very inflammatory statements about what's supposed to be a non-partisan judicial hearing."‹