Good day all. A while ago, Boeing opened a plant in South Carolina. One of the reasons they did this was South Carolina’s pro-business environment. This is due to South Carolina being a “Right to Work” state.
In a right to work state, a worker can’t be forced to join a union or otherwise be forced to pay a union in order to work for an employer. This doesn’t mean that a union is forbidden to organize a plant. They may go ahead and try if they can convince the workforce that it’s to their benefit to be part of a union. For those opposed, and a union is formed, they can’t be forced out of their jobs.
It also makes it a bit harder for union’s to get into a business in the first place. All their normal organizing tools, (intimidation, threats, beatings, and a no secret ballots), can’t be used. Recently, the International Association of Machinists tried to organize the Boeing plant in South Carolina. The attempt didn’t go as planned. Here are the details from Fox News:
Nearly three-quarters of eligible production workers at Boeing’s South Carolina plant voted Wednesday not to join the International Association of Machinists in a major setback for organized labor. The Post & Courier newspaper reported that 2,097 of 2,828 voting workers — 74.2 percent — cast ballots against unionization.
Yeah, I would say that is a pretty resounding, crushing even, defeat for the union.
Under NLRB rules, workers must wait a year before another union vote. In a statement, Machinists organizer Mike Evans said the union was disappointed with the vote but vowed to stay in close touch with Boeing workers to figure out next steps.
Since three quarters of the eligible workers told you to take a long walk off a short pier, I think that if the phone doesn’t ring, it will be the employees. I really don’t see that many changing their minds in a year, and since this is South Carolina, your usual methods of persuasion will be answered in a similar manner. Actually, they might answer with heavier weapons.
“Ultimately it will be the workers who dictate what happens next,” Evans said. “We’ve been fortunate enough to talk with hundreds of Boeing workers over the past few years. Nearly every one of them, whether they support the union or not, have improvements they want to see at Boeing. Frankly, they deserve better.”
And you’re going to get those improvements for them? Excuse me while I ponder this.
[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbp_JQ7RxqM’]
The vote was an uphill battle for the union and its backers. The global aviation giant, which came to South Carolina in part because of the state’s minuscule union presence, did so with the aid of millions of dollars in state assistance made possible by officials who spoke out frequently and glowingly with anti-union messages.
“It is an economic development tool,” then-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, now President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in a 2012 address of how she sold companies on coming to the state. “We’ll make the unions understand full well that they are not needed, not wanted and not welcome in the state of South Carolina.”
Private sector unions are dying. They long ago stopped representing the workers and saw them as nothing more then dues paying serfs. We have seen, in one state after another, when Right to Work laws are enacted, Unions are generally shown the door by their own members. While some of the employees of Boeing may have some issues, I think that Boeing will answer them and see what they can do. They want to keep the troublemakers from the unions as far away from them as they can. They have first hand knowledge of their antics in Seattle. Good work to the Boeing employees in South Carolina. I can’t wait to take a trip on one of the new Dreamliners you’re building.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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