by Smitty
Stacy mentioned the myopia of the Left with respect to providing future voters earlier today. Down in the land of Nikki Haley, there is a similar outburst of nihilism afoot, attempting to abort Boeing’s efforts to build planes.
Karl Marx famously said “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The practical implementation of this has been “If I can’t have it, you can’t have it.” Thus is the Decalogue’s admonition not to covet converted from sin to Lefty ‘virtue’.
By challenging Boeing’s right to build aircraft in South Carolina, labor’s bureaucratic allies in Washington are threatening the ability of states to compete for new jobs and investment—and risking the economic recovery to boot.
In 2009 Boeing announced plans to build a new plant to meet demand for its new 787 Dreamliner. Though its union contract didn’t require it, Boeing executives negotiated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to build the plane at its existing plant in Washington state. The talks broke down because the union wanted, among other things, a seat on Boeing’s board and a promise that Boeing would build all future airplanes in Puget Sound.
Labor isn’t doing anything noble. This action is the antithesis of guts:
The NLRB obliged with its complaint yesterday asking an administrative law judge to stop Boeing’s South Carolina production because its executives had cited the risk of strikes as a reason for the move. Boeing acted out of “anti-union animus,” says the complaint by acting general counsel Lafe Solomon, and its decision to move had the effect of “discouraging membership in a labor organization” and thus violates federal law.
It’s hard to know which law he’s referring to. There are plentiful legal precedents that give business the right to locate operations in right-to-work states. That right has created healthy competition among states and kept tens of millions of jobs in America rather than heading overseas.
This is another brick in the wall of the mausoleum of American manufacturing. These unions, apparently, won’t be satisfied until they ensure that no aircraft are built in America. The notion of the union members, to paraphrase WFB, ‘starting their own goddamn aircraft company’ and competing with Boeing, rather that parasitically draining it seems to escape the discussion.
I suppose if you’re Airbus, you might use the union as a proxy to attack a competitor, but there isn’t any evidence of ought but bloody minded idiocy at work in the minds of these union twerps.
It’s great that Sarah Palin likes to use her and her hubby’s union history. However, the scorched earth approach taken by these unions cannot be reconciled with any notion of recovery. Union labor is overpriced. Hating capitalism and destroying commerce will nearly achieve a Pyrrhic victory, but, just at the last second, deliver self-destruction instead. Just as they’re doing on the demographic front, it seems.
More at Hot Air.
