Labor deal with Boeing mutes NLRB challenge talk

COLUMBIA -- South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley stirred a national political debate on the powers of the National Labor Relations Board when it threatened Boeing Co. jobs in North Charleston.

The union is voting Wednesday on a deal that covers workers in Washington, Oregon and Kansas and promises to end the NLRB complaint. But it leaves Haley and supporters without the decisive NLRB wing-clipping they wanted.

That hasn’t stopped them from claiming a big win after months of saying they wanted more than behind-the-scenes deal making.

Haley and others fighting the NLRB won little beyond raising public attention about the federal agency’s powers, said Patrick Semmens, spokesman for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. His group represents workers at the North Charleston Boeing plant, whose jobs building 787 jets were threatened by a lawsuit the NLRB filed a lawsuit earlier this year.

“In terms of actually checking the power of the NLRB? I think that can only be done through legislation. I don’t see how the settlement does that at all,” Semmens said.

Boeing and Haley’s spokesman note that while the contract deal may resolve issues with the NLRB, that’s not the same as a settlement with the board.

Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said if the NLRB drops its lawsuit, there’s a big win against a “rogue” agency. That’s “a big victory for us and a defeat for the rogues. And I suspect it will be long, cold day before NLRB lawyers try to pull another stunt like this one,” Godfrey said.

The NLRB lawsuit said Boeing broke labor laws when it opened a North Charleston production line. The NLRB said the new line would punish unionized workers in Washington state for past strikes and argued that Boeing should return the work to Washington. Boeing denied the charges and said it needed the South Carolina plant for valid economic reasons.

For months, Haley spun the fight to protect North Charleston plant jobs into a national political issue. GOP presidential candidates slugged away as they courted early-primary voters here and around the nation.

Haley organized 16 fellow governors to demand the NLRB dismiss its case against Boeing.

The promises of a great fight continued in the fall. On Oct. 14, Haley gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 2011 President’s Club. Boeing is “fighting this on behalf of every company in America,” Haley said. “I’m fighting this on behalf of every governor in the country. And what we’ve agreed is I’ve asked them not to settle because if they settle they will do this to another country – another company.”

Haley brushed aside the costs. “What we do want to happen is they’re going to go and they’re going to fight this out. It’s going to cost them time and it’s going to cost them money. But they don’t want this to happen to any other company. So we will fight and we will win,” Haley said.

Boeing, however, never shut the door to negotiating with the union and the company said after Haley’s speech that it was unaware of any agreement not to settle. Boeing didn’t discuss the union negotiations with the governor and other state officials.

In a statement last week, Haley called the Boeing-union tentative agreement a victory. “Finally, today’s actions confirm two things we’ve said all along: the NLRB is nothing more than a rogue agency run by the president’s union backers; and that when the feds attack a company in South Carolina they can expect us to fight back, and expect us to win.”

Semmens sees nothing in the deal Boeing and the union struck that ties the NLRB’s hands.

“I’m not sure this has limited the ability of the NLRB to do anything like this in the future,” Semmens said.

The deal union members are voting on Wednesday includes job security for them. But Godfrey argues North Charleston workers gain, too, even though contract offers no promises about operations there. “We’ll get as much work from Boeing as we can earn,” Godfrey said, noting that the state’s workers “are going to prove they are worthy of all the work the company can place here.”

Godfrey said their jobs are protected and the state will continue a vision of becoming a major aerospace hub. And Boeing says a withdrawal of the NLRB complaint removes any questions about 787 Dreamliner production continuing in North Charleston.

For its part, Boeing hopes NLRB follows through on dropping the complaint, spokesman John Dern said. “Our position all along has been that the case is without merit and that the best course of action would be for it to be dropped,” Dern said. “However, in the event the complaint is not withdrawn, we will contest it as long as it is in force.”

Governors who joined Haley in that letter to the NLRB remain on her side, including Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal.

Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said the NLRB’s decision to move against Boeing “sets an untenable precedent for all right to work states, such as Georgia. This was a naked political payoff to unions, and we feel confident it will get overturned in the courts.”