The Chicago based Boeing Company will defend charges of alleged retaliation against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union brought by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) resulting from a second Boeing 787 Dreamliner assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina that is scheduled to start production in July, 2011.
Court proceedings in the case, which has drawn domestic and global attention, is expected to begin today, according to reports published by The New York Times, Reuters, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, ABC News, National Public Radio, and other media sources in dispatches dated Tuesday, June 14, 2011.
At stake in the legal battle, which may not be resolved for several years, is the decision of a business to move jobs to a state with right–to–work laws, such as South Carolina and 21 other states, mostly in the southern or western regions of the U.S., which have statutes allowed under provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibit agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership or payment of union dues or fees a condition of employment.
The NLRB has charged that the move by Boeing in opening a second assembly line in South Carolina, a decision it announced in October 2009, instead of expanding the Everett, WA facility, was aimed at punishing the IAM for engaging in their legally protected right to strike, including a 58-day walkout in 2008.
That strike and an earlier one in 2005 are partially responsible for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner being as much as three years behind schedule.
Boeing claims that other factors, including shipment of composite assemblies by worldwide suppliers, have been largely responsible for the manufacturing delays.
Whether the move to South Carolina was punitive, designed to send a message to the IAM that future strikes will cost their members more jobs, is one of the issues which will be decided in court.
The State of Washington had lobbied for keeping all production of the 787 Dreamliner in the Everett area, but at least 16 other states have joined the litigation, supporting Boeing's right to relocate plant facilities to South Carolina and elsewhere.
According to the Associated Press, the current hearing is just the start of a process that could take years of litigation between Boeing and the government.
NLRB spokeswoman Nancy Cleeland said that arguments before the administrative law judge could last a month or two, with a decision likely to come later this year.
Boeing is not optimistic that it will win in the initial hearing. If the Company loses, it could appeal the case to the five-member NLRB and then to a federal appeals court.
In testimony at a Senate hearing last month, Boeing general counsel Michael Luttig, a former federal appellate court judge, told lawmakers he fully expects to lose the case before the judge and the NLRB because of a perceived pro-union tilt by a majority of the board. He said he is confident an appeals court would ultimately reverse that decision.
Boeing claims that its South Carolina decision was based purely on business and economic factors. As Boeing spokesman Russ Young stated in an interview on National Public Radio (NPR), "Business environment, logistics, infrastructure, risks and opportunities; we were thinking about long term competitiveness and being able to sustain deliveries to our customers. When it all added up, the right decision was Charleston."
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a long-range, mid-size wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA). It seats 210 to 330 passengers, depending on the variant, and uses 20% less fuel that the similarly-sized Boeing 767, as shown in the attached video clip and slide show which accompany this report.
The new aircraft was first unveiled on July 8, 2007, and has become the fastest-selling wide-body airliner in history. As of March 2011, 835 Boeing 787s had been ordered by 56 customers.
The aircraft is currently in development, flight testing and early production, with first deliveries expected later in 2011 to All Nippon Airways (ANA). Unit costs are pegged at $185.2 million for the 787-8 and $218.1 million for the 787-9 model.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has a cruising speed of 567 mph, a maximum speed of 593 mph, a range between 8,800 and 9,780 miles depending on the version, a service ceiling of 43,000 feet, and is powered by two General Electric GEnx or Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.
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