South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said Thursday the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint against Boeing for violating federal law shows the Obama administration is against right-to-work states and “is acting like a bunch of thugs.”
The NLRB said Wednesday Boeing violated labor law when it decided
to open an assembly line for its 787 Dreamliner airplanes in a non-union plant in South Carolina instead of at a union factory near its Washington state headquarters. The aerospace giant said it will go forward with its South Carolina plans — first announced two years ago — while it fights the NLRB complaint.
“I thought I’d seen it all, but now the administration is acting like a bunch of thugs,” DeMint told Fox News’ Neal Cavuto Thursday. “They are really trying to bully and intimidate — not just Boeing — they are attacking every right-to-work state, and in effect warning every employer in the country, if they happen to decide to move to a state where workers are free not to join a union, that they are going to be harassed and harangued by the National Labor [Relations] Board.
“The president has packed this board with union guys and now he’s going to try to, I guess, curry union favor before the next election,” DeMint continued. “I’d just thought I’d seen it all — I really can’t believe they’re doing something like this — attacking a major employer when [the president] said they’re trying to create jobs.”
Cavuto noted the White House said it is not involved and it is NLRB issue. DeMint replied, “the president could stop this it in a second — if he wanted to.”
“And, frankly, he’s the one who packed this board, he’s the one who’s responsible for the way they’re behaving,” DeMint continued. “And this is very much like some of the other agencies — attacking, intimidating, bullying the people who are creating jobs in America today.
“But this is the worst of the worst,” he added. “Like you said [Boeing] announced this two years ago, but they are forcing Boeing to spend millions of dollars in legal costs to try and defend their right — they didn’t move a facility, this is a new one, they’ve added jobs in Washington [state] since they started building this plant in South Carolina.”
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