Administrative Law Judge Dismisses Boeing's Motion To Dismiss

An administrative law judge in Chicago has rejected out of hand Boeing's motion to dismiss the government's complaint against the planemaker for opening an assembly plant in right-to-work South Carolina.

The case is set to resume July 6th. In his ruling, Judge Clifford Anderson said that in his opinion, Boeing's motion was "without merit and should be denied in its entirety."

Reuters reports that Boeing had petitioned the judge to throw out the complaint lodged by the NLRB in April. The company said that its concerns about protection from future labor actions are legitimate. Boeing contended that no union worker has lost a job because of the South Carolina location.

Boeing says if it loses this case, it will be forced to assemble all of its Dreamliners in Washington State, and that several thousand South Carolina workers would lose their jobs. The company says that a strike in 2008 by the IAM was one reason for the delays in bringing the Dreamliner to market, though there were many reasons that the project is so far behind schedule.

FMI: www.boeing.com