Following the ratification of a new Seattle-area contract between Boeing and its largest union, the International Association of Machinists, eight months of the union extremists running Barack Obama’s National Labor Relations Board wrongfully prosecuting Boeing offcially and quietly comes to an end.

[via New York Times]

A top official with the National Labor Relations Board announced on Friday that the agency was dropping its politically charged case against Boeing, in which the agency had accused the company of violating federal labor law by opening a new aircraft production plant in South Carolina.

The N.L.R.B.’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said the labor board had decided to end the case after the machinists’ union — which originally asked for the case to be brought — had urged the board on Thursday to withdraw it.

According to a statement issued by the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel:

One of the stated goals of the National Labor Relations Act is to foster collective bargaining and productive labor-management relations. From the beginning of this case, and at every step in the process, we have encouraged the parties to find a mutually-acceptable resolution that protects the rights of workers under federal labor law. The parties’ collective bargaining agreement, ratified this week, does just that. (more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) – The National Labor Relations Board on Friday dropped its high-profile challenge of Boeing’s decision to open a nonunion aircraft manufacturing plant in South Carolina.

The board acted after the Machinists union approved a four-year contract extension with Boeing this week and agreed to withdraw its charge that the company violated federal labor laws.

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Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest through the trees. Such seems to be the case of the media’s reporting on the matter of the union appointees at President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board and their prosecution of Boeing. This latest example of the media being blinded is the alleged ‘smoking gun‘ that was reported on Friday. However, if the media were to actually look at the timeline in the Boeing  drama against the ’smoking gun,’ it appears they’re being duped by just another well-orchestrated smoke screen to cover the Machinists own potentially unlawful retaliatory actions against the Boeing employees in South Carolina.

On Friday, various media outlets echoed the union story line that there has been a smoking gun somewhere buried deep in the far recesses of some corporate filing cabinet in Boeing headquarters.

According to the union’s story line, the smoking gun is the content of slides on several PowerPoint presentations (view here) given to executives, beginning in April of 2009. The plot, according to the Machinists, are revealed by the ‘Project Gemini’—Boeing’s slides weighing the pros and cons of opening a second assembly line outside of Puget Sound. These slides, according to the union, ’prove’ Boeing’s intent was to ‘punish’ Machinists union members.

The union even goes so far as to state on its website:

“The Project Gemini documents prove what we’ve suspected all along – that Boeing moved to Charleston to punish our members for exercising their union rights,” said Connie Kelliher, a spokeswoman for District 751.

While ‘Project Gemini’ clearly shows that the company was interested in a second source of production in South Carolina because of “lower labor costs” and its “current hostage situation,” the problem with the union’s (and NLRB’s) entire evil corporate conspiracy theory is in the actual time line of events.

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The National Labor Relations Board continues to prove that the NLRB was established for Big Labor and Big Business while leaving employees out of the process. In complete arrogance, the NLRB has told South Carolina employees and their families that NLRB’s General Counsel Lafe Solomon’s plan to shut down Boeing’s South Carolina factory and eliminate jobs is none of their business.

As the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation press release put it: “Obama NLRB to South Carolina Boeing Employees: ‘You Have No Stake in Your Jobs’”

Furthermore, the NLRB ruled that it was no one else’s business because it has chosen not to allow any amicus curiae briefs to be filed.

The Machinists union also scornfully rejected the employees’ concerns. Both Solomon and the Machinists argued that the case that Solomon has brought against Boeing is “. . . already complicated” and listening to employees’ concerns would only “ . . .complicate an already complicated proceeding.”

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On Wednesday, when President Obama’s union-controlled National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the Boeing Company for making a sound business decision to “dual source” its 787 production, it was another blatant example of a government agency run amok. However, while most of the nuts and bolts behind the dispute were detailed here, there are several other, more intricate details behind the NLRB’s legally tenuous prosecution of Boeing that are deserving of closer examination—most notably, the union’s own culpability behind the decision.

A Union With a Bone to Pick.

Even before the decision was made by Boeing to locate the second assembly line in South Carolina, Boeing’s union (the International Association of Machinists) had a problem in South Carolina. Namely, workers at the facility had voted the Machinists’ union out shortly after Boeing bought the facility in 2009 from Vought Aircraft because of workers believed the union poorly represented them.

What brought the workers to the point of decertifying the union an interesting story that is both part irony and part poor representation by the union. (more…)