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  1. #1
    Veteran DarrinS's Avatar
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    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...266016016.html



    In October 2009, Boeing, long one of the best corporations in America, made an announcement that changed the economic outlook of South Carolina forever: The company's second line of 787 Dreamliners would be produced in North Charleston.

    In choosing to manufacture in my state, Boeing was exercising its right as a free enterprise in a free nation to conduct business wherever it believed would best serve both the bottom line and the employees of its company. This is not a novel or complicated idea. It's called capitalism.

    Boeing has since poured billions of dollars into a new, state-of-the art facility in South Carolina's picturesque Low Country along the Atlantic coast. It has created thousands of good jobs and joined the long tradition of distinguished and employee-friendly corporations that have found a home, and a partner, in the Palmetto State.

    This a win-win for South Carolina, for Boeing, and for the global clients who will see Dreamliners rolling off the North Charleston line at the rate of 10 a month, starting with the first one next year. But, as is often the case, a win for people and businesses is a loss for the labor unions, which rely on coercion, bullying and undue political influence to stay afloat.

    South Carolina is a right-to-work state, and we're proud that within our borders workers cannot be required to join a labor union as a condition of employment. We don't need unions playing middlemen between our companies and our employees. We don't want them forcefully inserted into our promising business climate. And we will not stand for them intimidating South Carolinians.

    That is apparently too much for President Obama and his union-beholden appointees at the National Labor Relations Board, who have asked the courts to intervene and force Boeing to stop production in South Carolina. The NLRB wants Boeing to produce the planes only in Washington state, where its workers must belong to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

    Let's be clear: Boeing is a great corporate citizen in Washington and in South Carolina. The company chose to come to our state because the cost of doing business is low, our job training and work force are strong, and our ports are tremendous. The fact that we are a right-to-work state is an added bonus.

    The actions by the NLRB are nothing less than a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America. They are also an unprecedented attack on an iconic American company that is being told by the federal government—which seems to regard its authority as endless—where and how to build airplanes.

    The president has been silent since his hand-selected NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon, who has not yet been confirmed by the United States Senate as required by law, chose to engage in economic warfare on behalf of the unions last week.

    While silence in this case can be assumed to mean consent, President Obama's silence is not acceptable—not to me, and certainly not to the millions of South Carolinians who are rightly aghast at the thought of the greatest economic development success our state has seen in decades being ripped away by federal bureaucrats who appear to be little more than union puppets.

    This is not just a South Carolina issue, and President Obama owes the people of our country a response. If they get away with this government-dictated economic larceny, the unions won't stop in our state.

    The nation deserves an explanation as to why the president's appointees are doing the machinist union's dirty work on the backs of the businesses and workers of South Carolina.

    Ms. Haley, a Republican, is governor of South Carolina.

  2. #2
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    you don't like unions?

  3. #3
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    Boeing's labour problems: Moving factories to flee unions

    Anyway, here's the sentence I found most amusing in the WSJ's editorial: "Boeing management did what it judged to be best for its shareholders and customers and looked elsewhere." Boeing's motivation for shifting production to an anti-union state was not to benefit customers. If Boeing felt it could raise prices for the airplanes it builds without losing market share, it would do so in a second, regardless of whether that was "best for its customers". Companies try to lower operating costs in order to raise profits or cut prices and win market share, not out of a selfless desire to benefit customers.
    But the more important flaw here is that the reason why Boeing might have judged its decision to move production to South Carolina "best for its shareholders" was that it didn't think it violated labour law to flee your union. If it did violate labour law, then Boeing made a bad decision and delivered negative value to its shareholders. ... There is simply no moral content to Boeing's decision to move production to South Carolina. Boeing doesn't get brownie points for engaging in regulatory arbitrage and stiffing its unions just because it judged that move to be best for shareholders. Congratulating Boeing for trying to deliver shareholder value is like congratulating it for building and selling airplanes. That's simply what the company does. Boeing's decision was a judgment about how to play, given its evaluation of the rules of the game. The question of whether companies should be allowed to flee their unions is a question about what the rules of the game ought to be, in order to deliver value to the economy and to society.
    Now maybe unionised Boeing workers should be more worried about hurting the company's market share as it competes with EADS and with regional-jet builders like Embraer and Bombardier. It certainly sounds like the company has a strike problem. But EADS's labour force is hardly non-unionised. If Boeing is having more trouble with its unions than its compe ors are, it's possible that the fault lies with the company, rather than with the unions. What's happening here is that anti-labour laws in certain states allow companies to shift investment to those states in order to get around their unions. And efforts by unions to block that manoeuvre can then be condemned as "restrictions on capital flow". The issue isn't freedom of capital. The issue is whether employers can use a threat to move production to a union-hostile state as a negotiating tactic in collective bargaining.

  4. #4
    Ain't over 'till its over MaNuMaNiAc's Avatar
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    you don't like unions?
    I ing despise them. They're completely destroying my country (Argentina). Bunch of thugs who want to bully companies into paying without any regards for common sense or knowledge of how business works apparently. I'm not opposed to the idea of unions, I'm vehemently opposed to the reality of them.

  5. #5
    keep asking questions George Gervin's Afro's Avatar
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    Now darrins promotes the president getting invloved in business/ labor disputes?

  6. #6
    Veteran DarrinS's Avatar
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    Companies try to lower operating costs in order to raise profits or cut prices and win market share, not out of a selfless desire to benefit customers.

    ing duh


    Oh, and those higher operating costs are passed on to us, the consumers.

  7. #7
    Cogito Ergo Sum LnGrrrR's Avatar
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    If one doesn't take the OPs assertion that "silence=consent", the whole article falls apart.

    Maybe the President doesn't feel it's appropriate to weigh in on the matter.

  8. #8
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    depends on the business, darrin. oil companies are still getting subsidies AND record profits.

  9. #9
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    If Obama broke his silence to take the side of the NLRB or the unions, Darrin's cries of "political interference" would be audible from the moon.

  10. #10
    Mr. John Wayne CosmicCowboy's Avatar
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    If one doesn't take the OPs assertion that "silence=consent", the whole article falls apart.

    Maybe the President doesn't feel it's appropriate to weigh in on the matter.
    Considering the president appointed the guy (most likely for his pro-labor views) I think it is a reasonable stretch to assume his silence condones the decision...

  11. #11
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    Considering the president appointed the guy (most likely for his pro-labor views) I think it is a reasonable stretch to assume his silence condones the decision...
    i think it'd be ok to put working stiffs ahead of increased profit.

    we don't need to crush their jobs right now.

  12. #12
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    i think it'd be ok to put working stiffs ahead of increased profit.

    we don't need to crush their jobs right now.
    South Carolina on line 2. They don't sound happy.

  13. #13
    Mr. John Wayne CosmicCowboy's Avatar
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    i think it'd be ok to put working stiffs ahead of increased profit.

    we don't need to crush their jobs right now.
    What about the working stiffs in South Carolina? They don't count?

  14. #14
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    South Carolina on line 2. They don't sound happy.
    i'm sure they're not. and i'm sure that boeing isn't happy about the intrusive behavior into their exploitation.

  15. #15
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    What about the working stiffs in South Carolina? They don't count?
    i'm sure they're not. and i'm sure that boeing isn't happy about the intrusive behavior into their exploitation.

  16. #16
    Mr. John Wayne CosmicCowboy's Avatar
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    i'm sure they're not. and i'm sure that boeing isn't happy about the intrusive behavior into their exploitation.
    So Boeing exploits workers?

  17. #17
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    i just dropped a bomb.

  18. #18
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    I was unaware that the workers of South Carolina were being exploited by Boeing.
    Fascinating.

  19. #19
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    i just dropped a bomb.
    Let's keep your personal life out of this, ok?

  20. #20
    i hunt fenced animals clambake's Avatar
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    So Boeing exploits workers?
    no, the gentle and pure executives of boeing are only concerned about staying compe ive. lol

  21. #21
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    no, the gentle and pure executives of boeing are only concerned about staying compe ive. lol

  22. #22
    Mr. John Wayne CosmicCowboy's Avatar
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    no, the gentle and pure executives of boeing are only concerned about staying compe ive. lol
    Exploit is a pretty strong word. Checking, it looks like the very lowest paid worker starting at Boeing makes over $15 an hour.

    http://www.ehow.com/info_7793400_ave...-employee.html

    http://www.payscale.com/research/US/...he/Hourly_Rate

  23. #23
    Veteran
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    15/hour = 30K/year. aka working poor. the avg wal-mart hourly is about $17, IIRC.

  24. #24
    I play pretty, no? TeyshaBlue's Avatar
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    That 15/hour figure was the very lowest paid worker for Boeing. But go ahead and compare it to the aggregate avg. at Wal Mart.

  25. #25
    Ain't over 'till its over MaNuMaNiAc's Avatar
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    no, the gentle and pure executives of boeing are only concerned about staying compe ive. lol
    yeah because corporations are inherently evil... give me a ing break. Do you have any proof South Carolina's Boeing workers are being exploited?

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