Labor Board Tells Boeing New Factory Breaks Law

While I live in the Seattle area and would love to see more work here. Boeing is a private company, even if they get defense contracts. They can build their planes where ever they want. They can build a plant where ever they want. If they are tired of the unions striking and costing them extra, they can build a new plant someplace where unions do not have a deathgrip on the local economy.

Not only that but boeing is not moving the plant from Washington to SC. they are simply building a new there. If this keeps up they are going to move production overseas and then we will all be screwed I guess.

What you said right here.

Although I am in Canada and it doesn't affect me. We are a non uninonized shop and we fight hard to stay that way. We treat our people well (they don't think so, some times) but We give out monthly breaks with treats and we also do quarterly profit sharing to the workers and bonus people for producing above and beyond. We buy lunches for people when we have TEAM events and they get christmas bonus and about 2% a year raises.

We have one plant out of 5 that is uninoized they GET NOTHING. Because it cost more to opperate that plant. About 18-20% more costly then other plants. Our buisness is growing, the floor in the 4 other plants talked union. Well we just opened up our new plant in Alabama instead. So that there would be no issue with it.

At the end of the day Business owners are in business for one thing. To make money. If your not making money why stay in buisness?

The Union was here handing out all kinds of union cards 8 weeks ago again. It is funny all the promises they can make the people on the floor. Things like "we will get you better health care, more wages 10-15% increase, more vacation time to spend with your family etc etc" I love how they can just outright BS people.

I fully agree however that we better be careful in what we choose to do with our future. This is global world we live in now and other countries have much more technology now to manufacture, they have educated people and they are not held to the same laws of safety, environment or patents, which makes it even cheaper to product products.

People need to learn to be happy with what they have and find new ways to produce better cheaper products. Or teach people about buying quality products and local products and why it is right to do so. I am not at an age and education level where I am willing to spend a little more money on a quality product with quality educated service along with it.

Hot hot hot topic as I work for Boeing's largest supplier.

I'm not sure if the article states this, but Boeing went to the union in Seattle and basically said "will you sign a 10-year contract saying you won't strike like [my company's name] did?"(my company recently negotiated unprecedented 10-year contracts with all of it's major labor unions, virtually turning the labor/management relationship upside down and making it a true partnership, pretty cool).

The union said "no way".

Boeing said "Just fair warning, if you don't, we will be forced to evaulate putting this work in another location where the probability of a work disruption is much less" 

The union basically said "we're calling your bluff"

So... the union had ample warning and ample opportunity to make decisions that would have ensured the work stayed in Seattle, but they chose not to.

I fail to see how this breaks the law, and I can't imagine the Boeing lawyers wouldn't have researched this and done their homework beforehand.

I say good for Boeing for making a sound business decision.

Exactly! Even if Boeing came right out and said, "we are tired of labor disruptions (strikes) costing us money and orders so we are building a plant at a place that does not have a union" they are allowed to. I would have loved to see that plant near me and the new jobs it would create here (btw it is estimated building the new plant in SC will still add several hundred jobs in Seattle) but business is business and as long as they treat their workers fairly and build a safe product - I am happy for them to go there.

WSJ also has this great article about the decision.... with an economic analysis of "right to work" states vs "forced union" states.   Unions talk a big game about helping their workers but the data shows otherwise.

Wages, production, etc are better and grow faster in "right to work" states.   Even if your union wages are currently higher than your non-union counterparts.... chances are they won't be for long! 

Hello

The SC Boeing plant is about 15 miles from my house and we are happy to have it here in Charleston.  We are watching progress of the labor board lawsuit. It is funny that the hearings are in Washington state and not somewhere impartial.

Kevin

I don't think any one who works here is under miconceptions that, in 3-5 years, it won't be A 787 plant, it will be THE 787 plant.

But if you were the NLRB would you want to sue Boeing in Washington to keep jobs in washington, or in some other state (SC, VA/DC/MD)?

Happens all the time .  Why else would the NFLPA sue the NFL in Minnesota besides the pro-labour judge they got?

I think a more accurate title would read "Labor Board Says Boeing Executives Broke Labor Laws."

The factory isn't breaking a law. Boeing broke the law by retaliating against the union.

Seems very foolish of Boeing executives to have documented their reprisals against the union. DUMB! They should have just left it as an economic move. Instead, they introduced language that put them at jeopardy.

Although manufacturers have long moved plants to nonunion states, the board noted that Boeing officials had, in internal documents and news interviews, specifically cited the strikes and potential future strikes as a reason for their 2009 decision to expand in South Carolina.

At the end of the day, isn't making money pretty much everyone's goal? So there are competing interests for that money. A company produces a product and sells it for the profits. Somehow, the money left after paying for the raw materials has to be divided between the workers who transformed the materials into saleable goods, the managers who run the lines, the owners who put up the initial investments, etc. To overturn your comment, if I am not making money, why should I show up at the plant and spend my time making money for you?

In a perfect world, everyone would have identical ideas of how to split the pot. In the real world, some owners are greedy, some workers are greedy, and some owners and workers simply distrust the motives of the other.

Certainly in the history of the labor movement, corporations at one time were highly exploitive. Child labor, as an example, was the norm. And when the fed first tried to pass laws limiting it, they were overturned as unconstitutional, and states generally also supported the fat cat contributors. Outsourcing is the new child labor, in some ways. Absolutely legal, leaves more profit for the company, and in the end, destroys the fabric of society (in this case by eliminating jobs within the society - one of the reasons the Arab spring is occuring is all the educated and unemployed young people).

Union have perhaps overplayed their time in some ways. But I think without some sort of reason to treat people well, many larger (and frankly, smaller companies that I know of), will simply work to maximize owner profits and screw the worker. And in a global economy, companies often have little loyalty to the country or the people. (I am old enough to remember when one of Walmart's selling points was that they sold only US made goods. Now I think you would be hard-pressed to find US made goods - excluding groceries -  there, even if they are available as alternatives.)

What makes you think cheaper products are also better products? Or that a cheap workforce is an equally qualified workforce?

There is an axiom in Chinese manufacturing - 50% of labor for 85% of quality. They cut your labor costs in half and produce products that are 85% as quality controlled as products produced in the US. I see these quality problems in running shoes - products that fall apart, products that are inconsistent in sizing. One day I'm a size 7.5 in a certain shoe; next manufacturing run I'm a size 8 in the very same model and iteration.

Here's another axiom - 50% savings, 50% quality. You can produce software code overseas but it will be at 50% of the quality than if you had it created in the US. Something about the lack of critical thinking skills necessary to produce  production-ready code. You have to spend time/effort bringing the code up to speed before it can be put into production.

A leading call center management firm moved its software development to the Phillipines. An $80,000 sw developer in the US costs $12,000 in Manila. Now they are moving their software development to Cairo Egypt because they can push that cost down significantly more. What do you suppose will happen with the quality of that code? I suspect their 50% quality number will take a dive. Not only that, but what happens when Egypt decides to take their telecommunications offline again? No code transmittal, no code put into production. This company had to pay a $100,000 extract fee to get the IT executive out of Egypt during their political unrest. Yeah, that sounds like a great location for developing software!

Yes, it's a brave new world out there. Everyone should be paranoid that the quality job they do is being sent overseas to be done for half the price at half the quality. Because at the beginning of the day, business owners want to squeeze every penny out of their overhead that they can so that they can retain every penny that they can. Because greed knows no bounds.

Fortunately for employees of aircraft companies, aircraft companies cannot afford to produce products at 85 or 50% of quality. Those quality losses result in loss of lives which equates to lawsuits and loss of retained income to aircraft companies. That's the ONLY reason those jobs haven't been sent overseas.

There's another axiom I like: You get what you pay for.

You want cheap airplanes? I don't.

For the record, I have no problem with Boeing moving their plant to South Carolina.

The biggest issue I have with it isn't the union / Boeing contest but the fact that you have a corporation that wants to do business in this country (which is becoming less and less) and the government keeping down thier profit and more importantly, jobs (be them union or not).

Unfortunately, Unions have to provide a benefit to their clientele, and to provide it they use the labor force as a bargaining chip, putting the corporation and the laborer at risk.

The inverse is not usually true though... paying more does not equal better.... just saying...

Really? which one to start with, Cops, fireman, teachers, sports ?  or is this just a anti-manufacturing union comment?

Indeed!  there's 3 good ones to start with.     Move on to the rest of the unions of government workers when you're done with these.

Outside of Appalachia where the coal companies own nearly everything and the workforce is so undereducated that there's little chance for them to properly negotiate their own wages individually......  there are very few compelling reasons for a modern union workforce. 

Well said.  Unions were a part of the growth of capitalism that had their place back in the early 20th century.  However with more labor laws they have outgrown their usefulness and are now nothing more than a hindrance to growth.

Look at all the foreign owned auto maker.  Where are they building their new plants?  In the south of course.  And these plants are doing very well.  The workers there make a good wage and are generally happy.

So if they can do it without unionizing why can't the big 3 auto workers?  It's because many (not all but many) unions are cultures of greed.

People argue that w/o unions wages would fall.  Perhaps.  But perhaps these wages are artificially high to begin with.  If they fall far enough people will leave to find better paying careers.  And if enough leave the employers will be forced to raise wages to gain workers back.  It's pretty amazing how well the free market works with you don't screw with it.