Boeing! Boeing! Boeing! Here Comes Issa

Barack Obama and his comrades at the big unions are happily encouraging their friends at the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) to ignore Congress and the Constitution and make business decisions for private companies by interfering directly in their operations under bureaucratic cover.

But as proof that Californians aren't all bad, Republican Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government, has scheduled hearings on the Democrat-controlled NLRB over its interference with the operations of Boeing Aircraft. Seems the NLRB, currently being led around by the nose by Obama's recess-appointed leftist/unionist Craig Becker wants Boeing to cease its "unfair labor practice" in which it dared to open a non-union plant in South Carolina.

You probably all know the basics. Boeing decided to open a new plant in South Carolina where the business climate was vastly better than in the heavily over-governed State of Washington. Boeing is the giant of the American aircraft industry, and has done extremely well in its home production base in Washington (home corporate offices are located in Chicago). The company was getting a new contract for the production of the 787 jumbo jet. There was no more room for producing it at the Puget Sound facilities, so Boeing looked around and found the ideal spot in South Carolina. No jobs will be lost in Washington. This was an expansion plant, not a replacement plant.

But Democrats on the NLRB are bought and paid for by the unions. When they're bought, they stay bought. The appointment of Craig Becker gave the Democrats a majority on the NLRB. So the Board sued Boeing based on a union complaint for unfair labor practices because South Carolina is a right to work state. Joyful Boeing employees there didn't want a union to screw things up. No union jobs in Washington are eliminated by the hiring in South Carolina. Nevertheless, by some strange twist of leftist logic, the NLRB determined that Boeing was union-busting in Washington by hiring non-union labor in South Carolina.

And now the Obama bureaucratic refusals to appear before committees of Congress continue. The Oversight Committee prepared a list of potential witnesses, including NLRB general counsel Lafe Solomon. Solomon was invited courteously to appear before the committee hearings on Boeing. He semi-politely refused. Some day Republicans are going to learn that courtesy and decorum are seen as weaknesses by leftists. Solomon cannot be required to reveal attorney-client confidences, but a Board does not have the same level of immunity and executive privilege that a cabinet-level position does. Solomon can rightly be asked how the Board determined that Boeing was committing unfair labor practices without asking about private conversations leading to the decisions. More significantly, it can ask directly how the Board justifies having done so. Who better to answer that question than the Board's own general counsel?

An administrative law judge will hear the matter in Seattle on June 14. The Oversight Committee hearings are set for about two weeks later, and will now probably be delayed in order to subpoena Solomon for his testimony. But if the judge finds against Boeing, the matter will quickly be appealed to the D.C. Board (where the decision will of course be upheld), and then to an appellate court. Somewhere in between, we will be treated to Issa grilling Solomon (or even better, Becker).

The complaint against Boeing filed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is based entirely on the allegation that Boeing opened the South Carolina plant in retaliation for a union strike at the Washington facilities in 2008. The bulk of the work on the 787 will continue to be done in Washington, and the first one is scheduled for delivery later this year. But Boeing already has over 800 orders for the planes, and that could neither then nor now be accomplished solely in Washington. Boeing looked for a place to build the additional output efficiently and optimally, and found it in South Carolina.

Issa's letter to Solomon said: "This hearing will focus on how your actions against Boeing could impact the thousands of Boeing employees at a non-union work site in South Carolina. You assert that you do not seek to close Boeing's operations in South Carolina, yet the relief requested would have that exact effect." Boeing filed papers which demonstrated that the company had not removed or transferred any work from its Puget Sound site. It has refuted the claim that any union members have lost a job because of its decision.

The union and the NLRB have basically suggested that the 787 contract was "meant for the Washington facility" and all production on the 787 in South Carolina should cease. The South Carolina plant was built almost exclusively to handle the overload of 787 orders. It's tooled for it and Boeing hired with that goal exclusively in mind. The investment was huge. In fact, it was the largest industrial investment in that state's history. 1,000 jobs were created (no Obama mumbo-jumbo about jobs "created or saved") and many more are in the offing as production accelerates. If 787 production stops in order to satisfy the greed of union labor, the plant will effectively die.

This is in fact a double power play. South Carolina law allows for unionization, but also allows employees to refuse to join a union. Becker and the leftist members of the NLRB want to reverse the trend of ever-shrinking industrial unions. Congress refused to go along with card-check and elimination of secret ballots in union elections. Becker and his bureaucrats are determined to do end-runs around Congress using regulations to create union rights that Congress has refused to grant. If the Board could succeed in requiring that all 787 work be done in Washington or in a union shop, it might accomplish coercing South Carolina employees into joining a union they have already rejected.

Issa and his fellow GOP members will launch a major attempt to expose this bureaucratic travesty. At a time when the economy is the issue and the focus is jobs, jobs, jobs, the Obama administration, his cabinet and his czars are doing everything they can to stifle job growth. This is only one painful example of how they intend to go about it.