McClatchy Newspapers reports on the Republican presidential debate in Greenville, S.C., “South Carolina’s Haley leaves mark on GOP presidential debate“:

With so few candidates at the debate, [Gov. Nikki]  Haley played a supporting role as the Fox News moderators took up her challenge to presidential candidates to weigh in on a National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing Charleston’s plant.

Pawlenty jumped first, claiming President Barack Obama’s administration crossed a new line in opposing Boeing’s decision to locate outside of its home base of Washington. “It’s a preposterous decision,” he said.

Minnesota Public Radio, “Pawlenty scores some points in first GOP debate“:

On the domestic front, Pawlenty drew wild applause from the audience when he stood with South Carolinians over a local labor issue involving Boeing aircraft jobs.

“You have this administration, through the National Labor Relations Board, telling a private company that they cannot relocate to South Carolina and provide jobs in this state. And they are good-paying jobs, and they’re needed jobs. It’s a preposterous decision and position of this administration.”

It’s not just a local labor issue. It’s a national issue of tremendous importance to businesses across the nation, who are deeply concerned about a National Labor Relations Board that arrogates to itself the power to determine where a company can locate new production facilities.

And although the Republicans have seized on the issue while Democrats, tied to organized labor, have remained mostly silent, this is also not inherently a partisan issue. The idea that a government agency can reinterpret precedent and ignore the facts of a case to shut down a billion-dollar operation employing more than 1,000 people should alarm those of all political affiliations who believe in private-sector growth.

The NLRB’s account of the facts of the case is suspect. Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) of the House Education and Workforce Committee has sent a letter (available here) to Lafe Solomon, the NLRB’s acting general counsel who brought the complaint against Boeing.

The complaint references alleged statements made by Boeing officials between October 2009 and March 2010 that work stoppages were one reason for choosing the new location.

When asked about the charge in June 2010, the NLRB regional director Richard Ahearn told The Seattle Times “it would have been an easier case for the union to argue if Boeing had moved existing work from Everett, rather than placing new work in Charleston.” He was also unable to point to any “bright line” rule to determine whether the company’s actions violated the law. Finally, the regional director stated “an initial ruling is weeks away.”

The letter requests NLRB documents underlying the decision. Bloomberg reports, “Republicans Rally Behind Boeing Over Labor Board Complaint.”

On the Senate side, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and 18 other Senate Republicans have written President Obama calling on him to withdraw the nomination of Solomon — the NLRB’s general counsel job requires Senate confirmation — and NLRB member Craig Becker, the former SEIU lawyer who serves on the board via a recess appointment. From FoxNews.com, “Senate Republicans Threaten to Fight NLRB Nominations Over Boeing Complaint“: (continue reading…)

Fox News interviews former Peter Schaumber, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, on the NLRB’s complaint against Boeing for expanding production facilities in South Carolina instead of Washington state. From “Ex-Labor Board Chairman: Union-Backed Case Against Boeing ‘Unprecedented’“:

“It would be fair to say it’s unprecedented,” he said.

Schaumber, a Bush administration appointee who served on the board for almost eight years including as chairman, argued that the NLRB counsel offered “no basis” for the central claim that Boeing retaliated by transferring work from Washington to South Carolina.

“The workers don’t have any claim to the work,” he said. “If the workers don’t have any claim to the work, it wasn’t retaliatory to open a new second production line. … It is simply expanding its business operation.

The story also quotes South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has been very effective in both expressing his constituents’ ire and the implications for the national economy of the NLRB’s pro-union diktat.  South Carolina politicians have continued to press the issue in the news (with the notable exception of Rep. James Clyburn).

Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina has repeatedly called for comment from President Obama on the NLRB’s action, but so far nothing. White House reporters have not posed any related question during the last two press briefings from Jay Carney. Maybe today … (continue reading…)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, interviewed by Candy Crowley on the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against Boeing for choosing South Carolina over Washington state to locate a production facility for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The video is here and the transcript is here. Sen. Graham’s comments provide great fodder for questions the White House press corps could ask spokesman Jay Carney. Today. During the daily press briefing.

CROWLEY: South Carolina’s senior senator wants to know why the NLRB is against the project when, in a previous life, one of the president’s top advisers thought it was a fine idea.

GRAHAM: Bill Daley, the president’s chief of staff, was on the board of Boeing at the time they made the decision to locate to South Carolina. For the complaint to be legitimate, you would have to assume that the president’s chief of staff engaged in retaliatory behavior against a union.

That’s just the start of some tough commentary from Sen. Graham.

At National Review Online, The Corner, Robert Costa interviews Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), who also has pointed, political remarks for President Obama. From “Haley Pressures Obama, ’12 Field on NLRB“

Boeing, which has poured billions into the new facility, calls the agency’s complaint “legally frivolous.” Haley, for her part, is baffled by how the feds think that they can kick around a private company, picking and choosing where it operates. “There is no case; this is ridiculous,” she says. “It is an embarrassment for the NLRB. The unions are losing and this is nothing more than a desperate attempt to see if they can make their voices relevant again.” (continue reading…)

The Seattle Times, which reports on its hometown Boeing Company more than any other U.S. newspaper, has editorialized against the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against the company over its decision to build new production facilities in South Carolina against Washington state.

From “Boeing’s South Carolina 787 assembly line disappointing but not ‘unfair’“:

It was a blow to Puget Sound country when Boeing put its second 787 assembly line in South Carolina. It was also part of a hardball negotiation between the company and the International Association of Machinists. This page regretted Boeing’s decision, but has never thought of it as something that could be, or should be, reversed by the federal government.

The National Labor Relations Board has labeled Boeing’s decision an unfair labor practice, and is asking a federal court to order the line to be moved to Washington. We would celebrate the day Boeing decided to do that — but it is Boeing’s decision.

The company and the union are both grown-ups here. Each knows its rights.

The union has a right to strike. It may be unwise to strike at a particular time, such as the month Wall Street had its worst collapse in 75 years, but it is the union’s right.

The company has the right to build assembly plants. It can build them in South Carolina or in Afghanistan if it likes. Its decision may be unwise, but it is Boeing’s.

No reaction so far that we find online from Washington’s two Democratic Senators, Sen. Maria Cantwell, who toured the state last week blasting high gasoline prices, or Sen. Patty Murray. In South Carolina, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) — whose constituents would work in the North Charleston Boeing plant — is encouraged about the Port of Charleston but has not issued a statement on the NLRB’s move.

The New York Times labor reporter, Steven Greenhouse, essays a big picture approach toward the NLRB’s move, in which Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon argues that he’s just doing his job by filing the complaint, which demands that Boeing manufacture the 787 Dreamliner in the Puget Sound area.

National columnists have lambasted the NLRB for its complaint.

• Jay Ambrose, “No end to ways unions hurt economy“
• Kathleen Parker, “The NLRB fires a shot South Carolina can’t ignore“

Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) presided over a quick but informative committee hearing Wednesday, “The Future of American Manufacturing: Maintaining America’s Competitive Edge.” (We judge an hour to be quick by hearing standards; Senators had to go to the floor to vote on the two-week spending bill.) Sen. Rockefeller’s opening statement is here.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic whip, gave a statement, and Commerce Secretary Locke read a statement and answered questions.

Senators’ comments were on a broad range of questions, and informatively so. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) pressed Secretary Locke to reconcile the Administration’s ostensible call for more reasonable regulations with the EPA’s new Boiler MACT rule, which will impose heavy costs on her state’s pulp and paper industry. The Secretary explained that the EPA rule on industrial boilers, in response to a court order, had been scaled back after public comment. In other words, “Could have been worse!”

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) discussed the importance of “lean” manufacturing as a key to global competitiveness. (The context was Boeing’s recent winning of the Air Force contract to build refueling tankers.) It’s not often we hear an elected official speak on “lean,” but it’s definitely an important advance for many U.S. manufacturers.

Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) hit the mark with his comments on overregulation and global tax competitiveness. He started by observing: “In Arkansas, the name of the game right now, and really throughout the country, is jobs, jobs, jobs.”

My manufacturers feel like they’re getting killed with regulation, whether it’s Boiler MACT or this or that, just numerous things coming down that are creating so much uncertainty, that the last thing in the world they’re doing is thinking about hiring people. So we have to have some certainty…

Other things like: Lots of manufacturers that are very successful with what they produce, and they’re building manufacturing facilities overseas to service the area there, to keep the transportation costs [down] and then again, having the inability to bring those profits home. And so, in not bringing them home, pretty soon they say, well, we need to spend that money and they start expanding those plants, and before you know it, the decision’s made to actually move over there.

A video clip of the Senator’s comments is on his Facebook page.

We really appreciate a Senator who understands and explains the practical consequences of the U.S. system of global taxation, which discourages repatriation of overseas earnings.