Obama Administration Blocks New Jobs in South Carolina

This new plant in North Charleston could be shut down

Charleston, Jun 20, 2011. In a puzzling move well beyond their legal mandate, the National Labor Relations Board is suing the Boeing Corporation for trying to build a second production line for their new Dreamliner passenger jets in South Carolina rather than in Washington state.

The Obama administration says Boeing’s decision to put its new assembly plant in a right-to-work state constitutes unlawful “retaliation” against unions in Washington.

It wants to block the opening of the recently completed South Carolina plant and force Boeing to build the aircraft in Washington State, rather than in South Carolina.

It’s important to note that Boeing’s decision to build a plant in South Carolina does not mean it will cease operations in Washington… simply that it will build a new assembly plant in South Carolina, which has a very supportive business environment. The Washington facility will continue to operate.

Boeing filed a motion to dismiss the case this week.
A hearing on the suit is expected to last for several weeks.

Unfortunately, if the Obama administration has its way, Boeing would be forced to scrap its plans for a South Carolina plant, taking jobs away from more than a thousand South Carolinians.

If President Obama's NLRB is successful preventing this plant expansion in South Carolina, then Boeing has only two choices left. They can either expand a plant in Washington State, or they can simply build these jets offshore. And the odds are that these new jobs will end up in some foreign nation. 

This will cost South Carolina around 10,000 new jobs. They might not be union jobs, but they will be high paying jobs for workers who will get off the unemployment rolls and start paying taxes again.

But Boeing is planning to fight the NLRB decision to sue them.

South Carolina is a right to work state whose voters this past November overwhelmingly amended their state’s constitution to ensure that a worker has the right to vote on whether they want to be represented by a labor union. The workers at the Boeing plant in South Carolina have also taken the bold step of de-certifying the union that represented them, effectively ending the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers stranglehold on Boeing production.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Now, Obama’s NLRB is attacking Boeing’s job creation in South Carolina as “union retaliation” directly related to a 2008 labor strike which crippled Boeing’s production in Washington state.

The ultimate irony of the NLRB decision is that this government agency is attempting to tell a company where they can locate a plant in the United States.

If successful, other U.S. companies will take note, and not make the mistake of building plants in right to work states.

Instead they might opt for more desirable overseas locations that are beyond the reach of Obama’s union zealots.