Boeing Machinists in South Carolina Plan Union Vote

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ahtZyy2pChjg

By Susanna Ray

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. machinists in the South Carolina plant the planemaker just bought will vote Sept. 10 whether to keep their union representation, a decision that may help determine the location of a second 787 assembly line.

Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers agreed today, in a meeting with the National Labor Relations Board, to let the 300 workers represented by the union at the Charleston factory vote on a petition to disband the group, said Boeing spokesman Bernard Choi.

That gives the Chicago-based company almost a month to “talk with our employees and express the view to them that we prefer to deal with them directly without an intermediary,” said Choi, who’s based in Boeing’s commercial manufacturing hub in the Seattle area.

Boeing, the world’s second-biggest commercial-jet maker, said last week that it may decide by the end of the year where to build a second 787 Dreamliner line to eventually speed deliveries of the delayed plane. The new jet is currently being assembled in Everett, Washington, using sections built around the world, including in the former Vought Aircraft Industries plant in Charleston that Boeing bought last month.

Dennis Murray, the quality inspector at that factory who filed the petition to get rid of the union, said more than 75 percent of the workers support the move, according to the Seattle Times, which first reported today that the vote had been scheduled.

South Carolina is a right-to-work state, meaning law forbids making union membership a condition of employment.

FULL story at link.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Heh. That's right suckers. Throw away the union.