Wilson
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - The National Labor Relations Board has dropped its controversial complaint against Boeing Co. over the company's decision to open an aircraft production plant in South Carolina.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers had reached a four-year agreement with Boeing that raised wages and expanded production at a plant in Washington, then asked the NLRB to drop the case.
Boeing chose not to have workers in the Puget Sound area of Washington work on 787 Dreamliner airplanes because that facility, which has unionized workers, posed a higher threat of a strike. The NLRB said Boeing violated two sections of the National Labor Relations Act.
"This is the outcome we have always preferred, and one that is typical for our agency," NLRB Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon said.
"About 90 percent of meritorious NLRB cases are resolved as a result of agreements between the parties or settlements with the agency before the conclusion of litigation."
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had called Boeing's saga "the most un-American thing" she's ever seen - "If a company has to fear where to put its business, it has to fear where it expands its business," she said.
In April, nine state AGs wrote to the NLRB to express their disappointment in the agency. That number grew by seven in a June brief. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson was among the 16.
From Legal Newsline: Reach John O'Brien by e-mail at jobrienwv@gmail.com.