From the desk of Steve Cabot:

Businesses across America are suffering at the hands of an aggressively pro-union National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As a result, 86 national business associations and 131 state and city associations have formed the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace. The Coalition’s mission is to amend the National Labor Relations Act, so that businesses can operate at maximum rates of productivity and profitability.

The Coalition supports the Job Protection Act, H. R. 1976, which would, according to an article in the P J Tattler, clarify the NLRA “with respect to state right to work laws, reining the agency in after a series of unprecedented actions that heavily tilt toward Big Labor.”

From allowing micro unions to organize to preventing Boeing from operating in a right-to-work state, from permitting union organizers to trespass on private corporate property to promoting card checks, the NLRB has been proving to be one of the most injurious institutions to the health and growth of American businesses.

We urge all readers of the Cabot Institute of Labor Relations blog to contact their congressional representatives and voice their support for the Job Protection Act, H R 1976.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com), the NLRB has broadened its recent decision about not permitting Boeing to open a manufacturing facility in a right-to-work state. It wants to apply that decision to all companies.

Unions have traditionally focused their attentions on collective bargaining, wages, and benefits. Management has heretofore been free to decide where a company should operate.

Now the NLRB wants to change that formula: The Board would like to force all unionized companies to consult their workers’ unions before deciding to relocate to another state. In other words, if employees don’t want to move, then the company will have to stay put or attempt to get an exemption from the union and/or the NLRB. Unions would have unfair leverage as well as a veto.

This is a further example that the NLRB will do what organized labor demands to counteract the waning levels of union membership and even help unions capture new members. Rather than preserving jobs in America, such tactics will cause companies to relocate out of the United States. And that will be bad for everyone: workers, consumers, companies; in fact, it will prove injurious to the entire economy of country.

Boeing · cabot institute · International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers · Labor Relations · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · Right to Work · South Carolina · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Washington · workers

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

In a further attempt to promote card checks, the National Labor Relations Board has filed suit to void a voter-approved constitutional amendment in Arizona that allows the formation of unions only by secret ballot elections.

This is not only blow against democracy, for Arizonians voted to approve the way unions could be formed, but it is also evidence of the NLRB’s ongoing determination to promote Card Checks as a way of increasing union membership.

Arizona’s attorney general will fight the lawsuit, making a stand for democracy and the rights of workers and management to decide upon unionization based upon secret ballot elections.

That, however, has not curtailed the intentions of the NLRB, which now plans to sue South Dakota as well over its passage of a constitutional amendment similar to Arizona’s In addition, the NLRB may initiate legal action against South Carolina and Utah in the coming weeks or months. It is apparent that if organized labor cannot get congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (aka, Card Checks), then it will let the NLRB do its bidding, even if it involves abrogating the votes of citizens.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

Having endured a potentially injurious decision by the National Labor Relations Board that would have delivered a severe financial blow to its bottom line, Boeing is fighting back. Its attorney, Michael Luttig, has issued a statement that the NLRB’s charges “fundamentally misquote or mischaracterize statements by Boeing executives.”

Indeed, Boeing has been vilified in the media through fallacious statements erroneously attributed to some of its executives.

To wit: Boeing was charged with wanting to fire its workers in Washington and replace them with non-union workers at its new South Carolina facility. It is a patently false charge, for no workers in Washington were going to be fired, none would be replaced by workers in South Carolina.

Boeing also states as false the government’s assertions that its move was an attempt to punish union workers in Washington. Since work would continue in Washington and no workers would be fired, one might ask how Boeing was punishing those workers. It’s an indictment without evidence. It is simply a charge based on complaints by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and advanced by its advocates on the NLRB, both of which do not want Boeing to operate in a right-to-work state.

We fully support Boeing’s position that the National Labor Relations Board should withdraw its complaint. Its complaint accusing Boeing of wanting to locate a new plant in South Carolina to avoid future labor disruptions in Washington state and to punish its unionized workers are without merit. As with all American companies, Boeing has the right to operate in geographic locations that are conducive to high levels of productivity.

Boeing · cabot institute · International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers · Labor Relations · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · Right to Work · South Carolina · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · Washington · workers

From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The attorneys general of nine right-to-work states, where workers cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, have issued a statement condemning a wrong-headed ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that prevents Boeing from building its Dreamliner 787 in South Carolina. The states are South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. Alan Wilson, the Attorney General of South Carolina, wrote: “The only justification for the NLRB’s unprecedented retaliatory action is to aid union survival.” We could not agree more.

As we recently reported, Boeing chose to open a manufacturing facility in South Carolina because several strikes in Washington had not only significantly delayed the company’s production goals by many months, but had also cost the company tens of millions of dollars. South Carolina provides a more business friendly environment than does the state or Washington.

As a corporation operating in a free-market economy, Boeing has the right to operate a manufacturing facility wherever it wants, especially as it contributes to the welfare of its employees and to a profitable bottom line. It is an essential element of our capitalistic heritage. And we support the right of all corporations to do business wherever they want, not someplace chosen by the NLRB, catering to the demands of unions, such as the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which has applauded the NLRB’s decision.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board has further evidenced its pro-union advocacy by attempting to prevent Boeing from opening a manufacturing facility in South Carolina, a right-to-work state.
Having endured numerous strikes against its manufacturing facility in Washington, including a 58 day strike in 2008 that cost the company $1.8 billion, Boeing management decided to build its new 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina. The proposed new facility would generate 1,000 new jobs and bring a $2 billion investment to the state..
The NLRB, however, filed a complaint against Boeing, alleging that Boeing is attempting to violate labor law in retaliation for past strikes against the company. The Board wants Boeing to stay in Washington. It’s no surprise that the International Association of Machinists District 571, which represents Boeing workers, declared the ruling “a victory for all American workers.”
Yet, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called it “one of the worst cases of unelected bureaucrats doing the bidding of special interest groups that I’ve ever seen.”
The NLRB is effectively attempting to abrogate the rights of Corporate America by eliminating its ability to decide where it wants to do business. It is also sabotaging the economic viability of twenty-two right-to-work states, which have been providing more new jobs than states which cater to unions and their often extortionate demands.

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From the desk of Stephen Cabot:

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has threatened to sue four states for ensuring that workers can enjoy a basic democratic right to cast secret ballots when it come s to the possibility of unionization. The four states, South Dakota, South Carolina, Arizona, and Utah, have mandated the use of secret ballots in union elections.

The NLRB has made the Alice-in-Wonderland assertion that secret ballots violate federal law. Though Congress has refused to pass the Employee Free Choice Act that would have permitted unions to coerce workers into signing “card checks” to ensure union representation, the NLRB has repeatedly looked for opportunities to present unions with opportunities to impose the use of “card checks” on workers, who may not want to join a union.

Indeed, the most effective tactic that workers have against forced unionization is the secret ballot. No union organizer gets to coerce, embarrass, or intimidate a worker to join a union when the workers’ preferences are made oblique by casting secret, anonymous ballots.

We back the efforts of Minnesota Republican Representative John Kline to amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) with the passage of the Secret Ballot Protection Act. While the Republican dominated House of Representatives very well may pass the amendment, the Democrats in the Senate will not pass it. Corporate America, therefore, will have to wait until the election of 2012 to be delivered from the high-handed, pro-union actions of the NLRB. Meanwhile, it is essential that corporations put in place survival strategies that prevent labor relations problems before they arise.

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