Following last week’s NLRB attack on the Boeing Company, response by the media and by politicians has been intense. Earlier this week, the NLRB issued this “Fact Check“…
Several news outlets have erroneously reported in recent days that the National Labor Relations Board has ordered the Boeing Company to close its operations in South Carolina. (Examples here and here). In fact, the complaint issued on April 20 by the Acting General Counsel does not seek to have the South Carolina facility closed. It seeks to halt the transfer of a specific piece of production work due to allegations that the transfer was unlawfully motivated. The complaint explicitly states that Boeing may place work where it likes, including at its South Carolina facility, as long as the decision is not made for discriminatory reasons.
In addition, the Board has not yet considered or ruled on the allegations in the complaint. Under the NLRB’s statute, the General Counsel and the Board are separate and independent, with the General Counsel functioning as prosecutor and the Board functioning as a court. The case is scheduled to be tried before an administrative law judge, acting under the Board’s authority. That decision could then be appealed to the Board itself for its decision.
Posted 4/26/11
Of course, the NLRB has not called for the South Carolina facility to be closed. Instead, the NLRB’s spokeswoman Nancy Cleeland stated:
“We’re not telling them what to do it it.”
In political terms, that’s known as plausible deniability.
