Boeing defends South Carolina plant in court

June 15, 2011

KIRO-FM Seattle, WA

Chris Sullivan

Boeing went before an administrative law judge Tuesday in Seattle to defend its billion dollar production plant in South Carolina.

The National Labor Relations Board accuses the company of opening the plant in retaliation against its union machinists for their 58-day strike in 2008.

At the opening of a hearing on the case Tuesday, Boeing attorney William Kilberg said the legal dispute has cast a shadow over the company. He said the process has affected Boeing, its employees, its supplies and its investments. "It's made life very, very difficult for Boeing," he said.

"There's no one injured, no one identified as being injured. No one has lost a job. We have no idea when the board talks about work being transferred, what work they're referring to," Kilberg said, adding that 3,176 jobs have been added in Everett.

Carson Glickman-Flora, an attorney representing the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said Tuesday that it is not necessary to demonstrate economic harm to show Boeing broke the law.

The NLRB wants Boeing to immediately stop work in South Carolina and move the second 787 production line to Everett.

What makes this NLRB complaint so unusual is that it comes after Boeing has pumped a billion dollars into the facility and hired more than a thousand employees in North Charleston.

Many workers successfully sue their employers for retaliation, but most never make the headlines. But when the company is the US' top exporter everyone pays attention, including businesses and labor unions.

"Those companies are going to be afraid or should be afraid that they cannot expand in the US for fear that the NLRB will meddle," Wall Street Journal reporter Melanie Trottman told MyNorthwest.com.

Michael Eastman, with the US Chamber of Commerce, says it's the remedy the NLRB is seeking that makes this case front-page news.

"It's what puts this case off the chart," he said. "The scope of it. The amount of dollars invested. The amount of people hired, and the scope of the project."

The hearing in Seattle is expected to last about six weeks, but this complaint could be appealed all the way up the legal ladder to the US Supreme Court. The dispute could take years to resolve.

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