Boeing accused of strike retaliation
NLRB files complaint, cites move to S.C. plant
Federal labor regulators are accusing Boeing Co. of illegally retaliating for a 2008 union strike by adding a nonunion assembly line in South Carolina for its new 787 passenger jet.
The complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board said the remedy should include moving the South Carolina assembly work back to Washington state, where it would be under union jurisdiction.
The complaint quotes public statements by Boeing executives saying they put the plant in South Carolina in part to avoid future labor disruptions. The government complaint said this amounts to discriminating based on union activity.
Most 787s are being assembled in Washington state by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Boeing expects to deliver the first one to a customer later this year. Boeing plans to build seven 787s per month in the Puget Sound area near Seattle and three per month at a new plant in Charleston, S.C. Its more than 1,000 workers there are nonunion.
An IAM strike in late 2008 shut down Boeing’s commercial airplane production for eight weeks. It was one of several factors contributing to the delay of more than three years for the 787. Less than a year after the strike ended, Boeing said the second 787 production line would be in South Carolina, which offered Boeing $170 million in incentives and relief from sales taxes on things like fuel used in test flights.
The complaint quoted President, Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney saying on an earnings conference call that Boeing was moving some 787 work to South Carolina due to “strikes happening every three to four years in Puget Sound.” The NLRB also said that an Oct. 28, 2009, memo about the South Carolina assembly line said that one reason was to reduce Boeing’s vulnerability to delivery disruptions caused by work stoppages.
Boeing considered keeping the work in the Seattle area along with moving it to South Carolina. One factor was that Boeing worked with two major suppliers – which it later bought out – in the Charleston area, said Boeing spokesman Tim Neale.
Neale also said that the number of IAM workers in the Puget Sound area has actually grown by 2,000 workers since then. South Carolina was “add-on capacity. It wasn’t a transfer of work,” he said.