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 Columbus, Mississippi, permanent replacement workers have taken up the anti-union banner: they want to decertify the union at Omnova Solutions, Inc., a maker of upholstery products.

A petition for decertification has been filed; and after a four-to-six week period awaiting approval of the petition by the NLRB, more than 100 workers could vote in a secret ballot election to make the company non-union, following a year-long strike that has had a negative effect on the company’s bottom line.

This is another example of American workers being fed up with unrealistic union demands, especially during a period of high unemployment when workers are desperate to earn a living, to pay their expenses, and put food on dinner tables. Only high-handed union officials seem unconcerned with the day-to-day problems of the unemployed. It’s time for all American workers to say no to unionization and yes to full employment.

cabot institute · Columbus · decertification · employees · labor · Labor Relations · management · Mississippi · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · Omnova · organized labor · petition · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · strike · union · unionizaion · Unions · upholstery · 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.

amendments · Arizona · cabot institute · card checks · constitutional amendment · Employee Free Choice Act · employees · Labor Relations · National Labor Relations Board · nlrb · South Carolina · South Dakota · stephen cabot · Steve Cabot · unionization · Unions · Utah · workers

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