Pelosi: Jobs Less Important Than Unions
Two years ago, South Carolina Boeing workers voted 199-68 to decertify their union. The NLRB has filed suit against the company for choosing to locate a new plant there instead of Washington state. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi thinks it’s just fine if those jobs go the way of the dodo if they’re not proper union jobs.
“Do you think it’s right that Boeing has to close down that plant in South Carolina because it’s non union?” asked host Maria Bartiromo. Pelosi’s reply: “Yes.”
The minority leader quickly added that she would rather it simply unionize and stay open. But barring unionization, by Pelosi’s reasoning, it should simply shut down.
Bartiromo followed up by asking if government should be getting involved in such corporate decisions. Pelosi dodged the question by saying “you asked me what I thought and I told you what I thought.” In short, Pelosi strongly supports every citizen’s right to choose–so long as the choices they make are one of which Pelosi approves. Otherwise, not so much.
Yes, exactly. Pelosi wants to control the choices of every citizen, because the clerk at the 7-11 is exactly the same as a multi-national corporation that chooses to relocate so it can screw over workers with lower wages and lousy benefits in order to enrich its executives. Bless you, Dodd, for standing up for the poor, down-trodden billionaires who are so desperately trying to eke out just a few hundred million more on the backs of the middle class.
I wish there were more facts in your post…rather than just a gotcha type hit job on Pelosi…a favorite target of you Teavangelicals.
How many jobs are involved? I would have to say…not being intimately familiar with this story…that a few jobs lost in order to keep from undermining the right to collectively bargain is probably an unfortunate but necessary trade-off.
I know people are freaked out by the economy, and in their panic want to race to the bottom…be just like China. Indeed they wanted to do something similar when they were freaked out by 9.11…and were willing to scarifice everything we stand for out of fear of people who didn’t look o speak like them.
Decisions made under such circumstances aren’t generally wise.
Could it be that management wants to be able to compete in a world market and keep the jobs in the USA?
Dodd: Union Jobs in Washington State Don’t Count When I’m Trying to Vilify My Enemies.
@WR:
Did you miss the part where the Boeing workers in South Carolina voted to decertify their union?
@Moosebreath:
Moosebreath: Screw the people of South Carolina
“The NLRB has filed suit against the company for choosing to locate a new plant there instead of Washington state.”
It would have been nice if DODD explained exactly why, under existing law, the NLRB was taking this action instead of just using it as a pretext to bash Pelosi.
Also, any time any Democrat is “quoted” by a Heritage blog is a fairly big red flag that the “quote” isn’t exactly in context.
Mike
From the NLRB complaint:
So, judging by your post Dodd, you are in support of Boeing doing something illegal in response to workers doing something legal.
Doug: Unions Are Evil. Did I Lick My Master’s Boots Well Enough Today?
Face it Moosebreath, if the worker doesn’t wear a union label and worship at the feet of the Trumpka’s of the world, you don’t care about them
Boeing had the chance to have Alan Mulally , the guy who turned Ford around, as CEO.
Instead, it went with some dimwitted mediocrity whose only accomplishment has been to destroy Boeing’s reputation for quality on time production of commercial jets in a Captain Ahab like war against the unions of Washington state.
This illegal South Carolina plant is just the latest of numerous mistakes he’s made.
@Hey Norm:
Or, maybe the law is wrong and needs to be changed. Judging from the way it is being applied here, that’s the conclusion I reach.
Full disclosure…when, in the past, I have worked in Union Shops in Right-to-Work-States I have elected not joined the Union. I did so for a reason. I knew that my wages would be guaranteed by the Union’s presence…but I could take home more $$$ by not paying dues.
See…this is how Unions work. Every auto worker in Kentucky, or Tennesee, or in this case Boeing workers in SC…benefits from the existence of Unions. Automakers in Kentucky pay competitive wages, not out of the goodness of their heart as Libertarians fantasize, but because they want to keep out the Unions from Michigan.
If you eliminate the Unions, which is what Republicans wish to do, then the Autoworker in Kentucky will no longer pay competitive wages, and we will be racing to the bottom.
I understand this is what people like Mataconis want…I disagree.
Face it Doug, if the person isn’t worth billions of dollars, you don’t care about them.
Actually Doug, it appears the CEO of Boeing shot of his mouth and made a pretty clear-cut case for the case for the NLRB.
The law is the law. If it should be changed…change it. But today Boeing is in violation from where I sit.
@Doug Mataconis:
That is obviously not an important fact. What matters is the fact that this video of Pelosi saying exactly what she’s quoted as saying was posted on Heritage. Oh, and evil billionaires.
Get with the program, Doug.
As you know, complaints have to allege the elements to get past motions to dismiss. I could draft a complaint that alleges that Mother Theresa illegally distributed controlled substances to minor children. That wouldn’t make it actually true. Or illegal. But, of course, if the aforesaid evil billionaires are the accused, well, innocent before proven guilty isn’t in play. The
evil billionairesretirees whose pension plans own Boeing stock are always guilty..@ Dodd…
South Carolina workers voting to de-certify is not germain to the complaint.
This seems to me a pretty basic case of an employer punishing workers for exercising their right to strike. Again…had the CEO not threatened workers, on multiple occasions, who were acting in a lawful manner…then it appears we would not be having this conversation.
Other than your excitement over bashing Pelosi.
@Doug Mataconis: Gosh, no, Doug, I didn’t miss that part. And since therehas been essentially no enforcement of labor laws in this country, it’s a pretty safe bet that Boeing said to the workers “We’ll build a plant here if you decertify the union.” Which would kind of explain why the current NLRB came down on them.
Oh, but freedom!
Norm sez: “I knew that my wages would be guaranteed by the Union’s presence…but I could take home more $$$ by not paying dues.”
Wages are just one aspect of union contracts. Work Rules are another. Jobs I have worked under union jurisdiction usually mandated I be paid by the hour no matter how productive I was.
Most non union jobs allowed me to be paid for “units” of production. I was able to work as many hours as I wanted and FREE TO EARN as much as I could.
WR,
So in your world, workers only free to decide to join a union, they aren’t free to decide to quit it and still keep their job. Okay, got it.
A text book case of why I support Occupy Wall Street. It’s not enough that the rich be rich, they have to impoverish everyone else in the process. It’s no longer enough that Atlas shrug, Atlas has to stomp the little people.
It’s the sheer, unbridled as-holery of today’s amoral, contemptuous, self-pitying, narcissistic rich that puts me in the mood not just to bring balance but to bring pain to people like this.
Frankly, Dodd and Doug, if the two of you could get your heads out of your absurd, outdated ideology long enough to look at the real world, you’d see how socially destabilizing this Randian f-ck you mentality is.
Do you honestly think the 1% can hold all the power in a democracy? A backlash is building. It’s starting with Occupy but it will migrate to other groups and other methods. This will bite this country in the ass, and when it does it will be the fault of people like the two of you and the corporate dicks you seem to worship so uncritically.
Your sympathy for the soon-to-be-unemployed people of South Carolina overwhelms me.
They just fellate the corporate dicks because they think it pisses off liberals.
Equalled only by your tender concern for the unemployed of Washington State, and those driven relentlessly down by the greed junkies who subscribe to your “philosophy.”
@Ernieyeball:
Actually, there are folks here who would prefer a corporation do a Jeffrey Immelt. This is a CEO who supports Obama, serves as the head of the President’s Job Panel, publicly empathizes with the OWS movement, while at the same time shipping many of GE’s jobs over to China, escapes paying taxes (as one of the hated 1%). Oh, I forgot he is a democrat — all is forgiven.
In the meantime, government arrows continue to point at companies like Boeing, who want to build plants that can compete, by being a non- Union shop, something voluntarily supported by most of it’s own members. Or, Gibson Guitars, who has been allied with Greenpeace and other environmental organizations, but who has the onus of being another successful non-union shop, one of the only ones remaining in this country who build guitars. The government supposedly has harassed Gibson, for over two years, citing infractions with the so-called 100 year old ‘Lacey Law.’ However, the unionized Bender Guitar, a competitor and Obama supporter, using the same standards in it’s wood selections as Gibson, has been left alone. It all reminds me so much of the ‘Blue Eagle’ strong-arming that went on under FDR’s administration, under his signature NRA legislation, that was ruled unconstitutional in 1935.
Leftism is a severe mental disorder, ab initio, and when you’re a leftist with as many tens of millions of dollars socked away as Nancy Pelosi it metastasizes into abject lunacy. Ergo this latest tripe from her is not at all surprising.
What’s interesting, however, is the extent to which the anti-American, anti-capitalistic left is dropping the collective mask. It wasn’t that long ago the likes of Pelosi were able to obfuscate their true beliefs. Hell, even as recently as the run-up to the 2006 mid-terms Nancy, Steny & Co. at least paid lip service to the middle. No longer. Now their hatred for the middle class and for national prosperity is on full display, for all to see. Ironically, of course, the public has been so dumbed down over the past 20-odd years the crazy left largely can get away with this sort of nonsense, but that’s a topic for another date and time.
Seeing the world like this is a dumpster-diving mentality, at best.
…….and the first quote shows signs of having that disorder. Time to consult the DSM.
It’s the mentality that founded this country, Jan.
Lot of people here condoning and supporting illegal actions by Corporations.
Like Jan for instance:
First…She completely ignores the facts as presented in the complaint.
And then she charachterises Boeing…among the largest global aircraft manufacturers by revenue, orders and deliveries, and the third largest aerospace and defense contractor in the world based on defense-related revenue, and the largest exporter by value in the United States…as struggling to compete. Yes…let’s eliminate the right to collectively bargain because poor old Boeing is in danger of financial ruin.
What was it Dan Akroyd said to his Weekend Update host???
@Hey Norm: Hey, Dodd always likes to stick up for the rich and the powerful as laws are for the little people.
Time for the police to go hippie beating as those hippies think they have the right to peacably assembly and petition for the redress of their grievences…. Silly hippies, they’re annoying the powerful
@Doug Mataconis: “So in your world, workers only free to decide to join a union, they aren’t free to decide to quit it and still keep their job”
In my world a company isn’t allowed to say “you can have your union or you can have your job.” And guess what? My world is the real one, because that’s the way the law is written.
I understand that libertarians tend to believe that laws shouldn’t apply to corporations and rich people, but I’m the one who’s actually living in the real world here.
Okay I think I get your position. One man. One Vote. One Time.
@Doug Mataconis:
Unless the one vote is against the union. Then there can be as many votes as necessary to achieve the proper result. And, of course, it shouldn’t be by secret ballot.
If you think anything different, you want “to eliminate the right to collectively bargain.” No middle ground. Any disagreement with any union position is tantamount to wanting a return to robber barons, no child labour laws, and Somalia-like anarchy.
Dodd…
You were wrong on the facts…now you have resorted to arguing strawmen.
@Doug Mataconis:
That’s a legitimate point. However, the law has not to date been changed. You don’t want to argue that we are under no obligation to obey a law we think is a “bad” law, do you?
@Hey Norm: I wonder what thread you’re reading. Because that reply has no relationship to this thread.
Sam,
I don’t practice labor law and I’m not well-versed enough in the NLRA to be able to answer that question, so I’m not going to comment on whether or not the NLRB’s legal arguments are correct, that will be up to a court.
@ Dodd…
At 12:03 you imply that union decertification by the SC workers had a bearing on the complaint…it does not.
Then at 15:53 you claim that there is no middle-ground with Union supporters.
Have a nice evening.
But the problem wasn’t that the South Carolina plant wasn’t union, the theoretical complaint is that they purposely expanded their operation away from non-right-to-work Washington. So how does unionizing the South Carolina plant help the poor workers in Washington?
It should be noted that non union work in Washington was impacted by their quite strategic decision to have a part of their production located away from the same regional hazards. All that is at issue here is, does Boeing have the freedom to locate their new production wherever it makes the best corporate sense or are they, once unionized, restricted to only building plants in the same area as their unionized employees.
So really, are the unions like the Mafia? Once unions get in, you can never, ever, do anything the unions don’t get their payoff.
@ JKB…
No. The issue is that Boeing does not have the right to punish workers for doing what they have the legal right to do. It’s as simple as that. Nothing more. Nothing less.
This post and so much of rightwing theory is premised on the idea that if only workers did not bargain collectively, the Job Creators would bless us with many more jobs.
Where in the world is the evidence for this?
Over 3 decades we have relentlessly weakened labor unions.
Have we seen a corresponding increase in job creation and quality?
At some point, when we achieve Wingut Singularity, the Dreamliner is going to be asssembled by 12 year old girls in Nepal, out of phlegm reinforced cardboard and radioactive Chinese drywall.
@Hey Norm: I guess someone else was using your computer at 14:25 when your username posted:
Because that was precisely the remark to which I was giving the reductio ad absurdum treatment. And, obviously, you’d have known that if you typed it with your own fingers.
@Hey Norm:
The accusation is that the additional plant and additional work was established in a right to work state due to a statement made that the strikes had influenced the decision. No one was punished as no union member lost a job by the decision. No work being done by union workers in Washington was moved to the new plant. In fact, additional work was added at the Seattle plants after the decision. All that happened was that the second plant was built across the country and closer to the Boeing HQ in Chicago in a state that I’m sure gave some consideration to Boeing locating there.
There is also no reason the workers in South Carolina can’t vote in the union just as they voted it out a couple years ago.
In any case, Pelosi is now on record saying that American workers don’t have a right to work except as they pay off a union to do so. Here position is that workers are not free to associate or not associate with whom they wish.
@ JKB…
Read the complaint.
@ Dodd…
Actually what I wrote, mocking the idiocy of Jan’s statement, was:
Context lends meaning.
@Hey Norm:
But there has been no punishment. No workers in Washington have lost their jobs. Dreamliners are still being built in the Washington facility. Boeing needed to expand capacity to fill Dreamliner orders so expanded somewhere other than Washington, and chose a right-to-work state for the expansion. Why should that be illegal?
Oh, and the number of jobs lost if Boeing is forced to shut down the new factory? Over a thousand.