Claims Complaint Is An "Assault Upon The Constitutional Right Of Free Speech"

The attorneys general of nine states have written a letter to the acting general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) calling on the board to drop its complaint against Boeing. The NLRB recently filed the complaint charging the planemaker was violating labor regulations by opening up a non-union assembly facility for the 787 Dreamliner in right-to-work South Carolina.

"The right to work, uninhibited by compulsory unionism, is a precious right and is constitutionally enforceable through our states’ right to work laws," wrote South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson (pictured) for the group. "Such laws are designed to eliminate union affiliation as a criterion for employment. However, the NLRB, through this single proceeding, attempts to sound the death knell of the right to work. Additionally, this tenuous complaint will reverberate throughout union and non-union states alike, as international companies will question the wisdom of locating in a country where the federal government interferes in industry without cause or justification."

Wilson says in the letter that the complaint could disrupt and possibly eliminated the production of the Dreamliner in South Carolina. He said by forcing Boeing to open a union shop would "drive a stake through the heart of the free enterprise system," and said Boeing's assertions that one of the reasons they had selected South Carolina was because of the union climate in Washington State was "an innocent exercise of the company's right of free speech. The Supreme Court long ago made it clear that the NLRA does not limit, and the First Amendment protects, the employer's right to express views on labor policies or problems."

Wilson said that the complaint was particularly harmful in the face of a sluggish economic recovery. "Intrusion by the federal bureaucracy on behalf of unions will not create a single new job or put one unemployed person back to work," Wilson writes. "The only justification for the NLRB’s unprecedented retaliatory action is to aid union survival. Your action seriously undermines our citizens’ right to work as well as their ability to compete globally. Therefore, as Attorneys General, we will protect our citizens from union bullying and federal coercion. We thus call upon you to cease this attack on our right to work,our states’ economies, and our jobs."

The letter was signed by Wilson, as well as the attorneys general of Virginia, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Arizona ... all right-to-work states.

FMI: www.scattorneygeneral.org