Right to Work States Bullied by BHO Administration

Arizona is a state that has been bullied by the Administration on issues like immigration so its significant that the Arizona Republic would recognize the latest form of big government interference with our states — the National Labor Relations Board’s attempt to prohibit companies from moving from high cost Big labor controlled states to lower cost Right to Work states:

If the people at Arizona’s aggressive, new Commerce Authority think it is tough slugging it out with other states for high-paying jobs, a new, even tougher opponent now is toeing the line.

How about fighting the feds over jobs? The National Labor Relations Board is making it clear to right-to-work states like Arizona that it does not favor companies moving manufacturing operations out of closed-shop union states.

Now dominated by President Barack Obama’s union-friendly appointees, the NLRB has filed a complaint against Boeing, which is about to open a new manufacturing facility for its 787 Dreamliner passenger aircraft in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. The agency contends it should build the planes in Washington state, where it already operates a unionized Dreamliner-manufacturing plant.

The NLRB complaint argues that Boeing moved to South Carolina to retaliate against unionized workers in Washington who frequently have gone out on strike in recent years. Boeing already has hired 1,000 workers for the nearly completed facility in North Charleston, S.C.

Mind you, Boeing hasn’t closed any of its Washington operations. In fact, it has hired 2,000 additional workers there since its decision to build the second plant in South Carolina. But the Obama NLRB has become so aggressively proactive on behalf of union interests that it is taking action that even the union-friendly New York Timesadmits is “highly unusual.”

Unusual though it may be, it’s only the beginning of the NLRB’s activism. Last Friday, the agency alerted the Arizona Attorney General’s Office that it soon will sue Arizona and South Dakota, as well as two other states to be sued later, for enacting laws requiring secret-ballot elections before a union can form. The laws are designed to counter union efforts to pass a “card check” law through Congress, which would allow unions to form after a majority of employees had signed a card declaring an interest in organizing.

The NLRB’s mandate to protect workers’ interests does not extend to dictating where a company can open new operations. Further, its effort to flex muscles by suing the states suggests a growing “Congress” complex at the agency. Federal dominion over the states extends to acts of Congress, not the whims and preferences of agency regulators.

In an era of anemic job growth, the NLRB’s attacks upon Boeing and the states will only generate greater uncertainty and greater reluctance by private industry to make the enormous investments necessary to create jobs.