Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point.

Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

You, MikeD, have hit the nail right smack-dab on the head. Years ago social awareness and a sense of civic responsibility would have intervened. Now, our idea of "shared sacrifice" in this country includes, "It's your duty to go out and shop," "Don't raise my taxes . . . OR cut my benefits," and, "Screw the military whining. They knew what they signed up for when they volunteered."

Pretty sad state of affairs, actually. Nobody cares anymore unless something affects them personally, and to heck with everyone else.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

stesta5074 said:
Unions don't use dues to lobby congress? Unions are the highest political contributors in the country. Corporations are FAR behind them.


http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
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The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), being a federal union, is prohibited by law from contributing ANY union dues to Congressional candidates or political parties whatsoever. To do so would invite immediate decertification and disbandment. As such, I voluntarily contributed on a biweekly basis $40 a pay period to the NATCA PAC, which is made up ENTIRELY of voluntary contributions from NATCA members. No pressure was applied to get me to do so. Indeed, soliciting for the PAC on government property or while on duty time is grounds for immediate dismissal from government employment. The grandstanding congressmen and senators telling you otherwise are, in fact, lying to you, and they know it.

Contrast that with corporate America, which are free to use shareholders' monies without any such restriction, and without having to resort to requesting separate voluntary contributions to run their PACs. For some reason, those same grandstanding congressmen and senators don't have a problem with that.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

stesta5074 said:
Unions don't use dues to lobby congress? Unions are the highest political contributors in the country. Corporations are FAR behind them.


http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
Click to expand...
Interesting that you use the statistics from up to 30 years ago. Last year the unions barely got on the top 10 of highest donors (3 of them, none in the top 5 were unions.)
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

dasleben said:
Again, not wholly anti-union, but...

I got my "opinion" from being a member of four different airline unions (ALPA, a ridiculous excuse for an in-house union, and two separate iterations of the Teamsters). And no, I don't listen to Fox News. My issue isn't the fact that workers seek better representation (absolutely nothing wrong with that...that's why I pay dues); my issue stems from the idea that a union can become so powerful that it can topple corporations.
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I'm sure you're intimately familiar with the Railway Labor Act, too. That's got not a little to do with how few and far between job actions are in this country's transport business versus many other first world nations.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

O&M said:
You forgot the word "evil." As in "those eeeevillll corporations and CEO's.

No one is crying "poorhouse." They are however crying, "get the F--- off our backs, and let us do what we know how to do."

It's amazing to me that no one seems to understand that every big business that ever existed started off as a small business. The topic of this thread started in a barn, and through a combination of hard work, innovation, proper leveraging of their assets, and a little bit of luck, they have grown into the giant that they are today. Yet somewhere during the transition from small to big, line, they became an "evil corporation." Yet, they are fundamentally doing nothing today that they weren't doing 100 years ago, just on a bigger scale. But instead of celebrating them as an American success story, we villify them and act as though we are somehow their victims. Well, maybe that's the way you view your life, but it's not how I view mine.

I agree with you. The middle class is disappearing. But it's not because of CEO's and Corporations. It's because of an increasingly intrusive government that seeks to equalize outcomes rather than opportunities.
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:yeahthat:

It is amazing to me that somehow some in the Federal Government can say they are for job creation yet at the same time be against those that create them.

What some on both sides of the aisle seem to miss is that the only way that the Federal Government can create a job is by taxing the rest of us to pay their payroll. Fundamentally there's nothing wrong with that; there are a great many necessary Federal employees and civil servants in this country, and my hat is off to them. But the idea that those are jobs in the sense that they grow the economy is the same as saying that an alternator geared to the drive wheel on a purely electric car generates electricity.
 
stesta5074 said:
Unions don't use dues to lobby congress? Unions are the highest political contributors in the country. Corporations are FAR behind them.


http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
Click to expand...

Oh hell, I'm in ALPA PAC but that's a different pool of money.

You bet your ass and I'm proud of it too. The Airline Transport Association has lobbyists all over DC whispering in ears, I think having one of those ear whisperers with my best interests at heart is in, well, my best interest.

AOPA, ALPA PAC and the "Brothaz TRYNA Make a Dollah Outta Fi'TEEN Cent" PAC I am proud contributors to.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

TallFlyer said:
It is amazing to me that somehow some in the Federal Government can say they are for job creation yet at the same time be against those that create them.
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And who, pray tell, has expressed that sentiment? To reiterate, nobody at the NLRB said Boeing couldn't relocate their plant. Nobody at the NLRB said Boeing couldn't chase cheap labor by moving to South Carolina. Nobody at the NLRB had any beef whatsoever with any of that. But it is against federal labor law to tell the union in Seattle that the reason for the move was in retaliation for lawful union activity way back in 2008. It is against federal labor law to tell prospective unionists in South Carolina that the only reason they got their jobs was because of retaliation against lawful union activity in another state for something that happened way back in 2008. That is an Unfair Labor Practice on not one, but rather two fronts: It is unlawful to discriminate against the Seattle work force for lawful union activity, and it is unlawful to intimidate South Carolina workers from unionizing. Boeing's public announcements, written communications to the Machinists Union, and even (stupidly) written communications to the NLRB were specifically designed to convey both retaliation and intimidation. It was intentional and it was blatant. And when NLRB gave Boeing the chance to retract those statements, Boeing felt it was more important to engage in anti-union retaliation and intimidation than to comply with the law.

You can couch this any way you want. You can defend Boeing to your heart's content. But what you're actually doing is condoning a blatant violation of federal labor law. I'm betting that if it was the Machinists Union violating the lay by, say, ordering a work slowdown in retaliation for a strike action that was settled way back in 2008, y'all would be up in arms on that one. I know those in Congress coming to Boeing's defense on this would be.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

Doug Taylor said:
Oh hell, I'm in ALPA PAC but that's a different pool of money.

You bet your ass and I'm proud of it too.
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And so you should be, because your airline's PAC certainly isn't looking out for you. If they could, just as an example, your airline would eliminate every crew rest requirement out there, as well as a lot of other stuff.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

RDoug said:
And who, pray tell, has expressed that sentiment? To reiterate, nobody at the NLRB said Boeing couldn't relocate their plant. Nobody at the NLRB said Boeing couldn't chase cheap labor by moving to South Carolina. Nobody at the NLRB had any beef whatsoever with any of that. But it is against federal labor law to tell the union in Seattle that the reason for the move was in retaliation for lawful union activity way back in 2008. It is against federal labor law to tell prospective unionists in South Carolina that the only reason they got their jobs was because of retaliation against lawful union activity in another state for something that happened way back in 2008.
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Why would Boeing have even admitted to this being some form of retalation (am assuming they did say that?)? They could've simply opened the new plant, given ANY other excuse or reason.....real or not......and been just fine. That part is what makes no sense.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

MikeD said:
Why would Boeing have even admitted to this being some form of retalation (am assuming they did say that?)? They could've simply opened the new plant, given ANY other excuse or reason.....real or not......and been just fine. That part is what makes no sense.
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Because everyone has the opportunity to be stupid. I was dumbfounded when I saw they admitted to some of the stuff they did...
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

MikeD said:
Why would Boeing have even admitted to this being some form of retalation (am assuming they did say that?)? They could've simply opened the new plant, given ANY other excuse or reason.....real or not......and been just fine. That part is what makes no sense.
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Several reasons, MikeD: 1) Boeing wanted to send messages not only to the Machinists Union in Seattle, but also to any workers in South Carolina thinking of unionizing. 2) Obviously, Boeing thought they could get away with it thanks to Congressional support . . . and they were right.

My guess is that Boeing's lobbyists ensured that Boeing would have that support before they rejected the NLRB's invitation to reword their written communications and retract their public statements. Whatever it was that gave Boeing the confidence that they could flaunt the law, there were certainly pretty brazen about it.
 
Boeing could've also decided that the upside to violating the law outweighed the downside in their view.

Anyone remember Meigs?
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

I find in many instances in this thread the union hating hilarious. Unless you own your own business/are self employed, you have benefited from unions regardless if you are in one or not. If you've ever taken a paid sick day, vacation day, benefited from the FMLA, worked a 40 hour work week (not applicable to pilots I know) or received overtime you've benefited from unions. If you feel like taking that symbolic stand, much like someone refusing public assistance due to not liking those particular government program, go ahead and hate unions while symbolically forgoing all of those benefits fought for long and hard by dues paying union members who you so despise. Otherwise you are a hypocrite. No majority group of business owners decided that they would provide those benefits out of their benevolence.

Probably my favorite argument is the losing jobs to insert 3rd world country here part. If only we didn't have unions driving up wages we would keep the jobs here. Well that logic only works, if they paid US workers the poverty wages and benefits a 3rd world country worker would earn, which, funny enough, we did 120 years ago prior to unions changed that!
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

genot said:
I find in many instances in this thread the union hating hilarious. Unless you own your own business/are self employed, you have benefited from unions regardless if you are in one or not. If you've ever taken a paid sick day, vacation day, benefited from the FMLA, worked a 40 hour work week (not applicable to pilots I know) or received overtime you've benefited from unions. If you feel like taking that symbolic stand, much like someone refusing public assistance due to not liking those particular government program, go ahead and hate unions while symbolically forgoing all of those benefits fought for long and hard by dues paying union members who you so despise. Otherwise you are a hypocrite. No majority group of business owners decided that they would provide those benefits out of their benevolence.

Probably my favorite argument is the losing jobs to insert 3rd world country here part. If only we didn't have unions driving up wages we would keep the jobs here. Well that logic only works, if they paid US workers the poverty wages and benefits a 3rd world country worker would earn, which, funny enough, we did 120 years ago prior to unions changed that!
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This ↑ This ↑ This ↑ & This ↑
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

RDoug said:
This ↑ This ↑ This ↑ & This ↑
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To put it in perspective to the people who don't get it, I was a white book hire (I know means nothing to pilots) who hit the point of no return (quit job, going to school to be a controller, then bang enforced non negotiated contract) when the agency used a loophole to cut controller pay, not by a few dollars but 30%. Guys like R Doug had the chance to create a B scale and sell me down the river so they could have the same pay scales they had prior. I was bait/switched and I'm missing 70K in back pay I'll never see, but they had the guts to not create some horrible dichotomy. The hard work they put forth and adamant refusal to sell us out made me realize early on, hey it isn't dues = profit. These guys are seriously not only spending their money to help me, but their time, leave AND continuing an unjust pay slash.

Thanks Rdoug and to those like you.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

You are more than welcome, Genot. I was never so proud of my union as when we collectively decided we were not going to sell you guys down the river to save our own pay. And I specifically thanked Barry Krasner, John Carr, Ruth Marlin, and others on the NEB both past and present when that decision came down. That decision will cost me $400 a month, compounded, for the rest of my retired life, but it was well worth it.

Too bad there are so many who only look after their own self interests because, in the end, if you stand alone, you don't stand a chance.
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

I just read that the S.C. workers used to be unionized and then voted to de-certify the union. Why would they do this?
 
Re: Boeing opens S.C plant . flips NLRB an exclamation point

beasly said:
I just read that the S.C. workers used to be unionized and then voted to de-certify the union. Why would they do this?
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Because coercion works, maybe? As previously noted, Boeing's public and written statements, while violating the law, were designed to do two things—retaliate against the Machinsts Union in Seattle, and intimidate potential union activity in North Charleston. Nobody believes that North Charleston would have gotten the 787 assembly plant if the workers had remained unionized, do they? Especially after Boeing let it be known they would in fact illegally retaliate and intimidate regardless of federal labor law?

Seattle's KOMO report on the vote.

Seattle Times report (long but really worth the read).

Post Courier article.

Seattle Post Intelligencer.

KING report.

And, to be fair, it appears the union itself bears some responsibility for their own decertification because of the way they handled a contract vote:

Charleston Regional Business Journal article.

But, in the end, Boeing knew they could violate the law and get away with it, and in so doing intimidate workers in South Carolina from ever again considering unionizing well into the foreseeable future.
 
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