Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has entered the fray in a dispute between the National Labor Relations Board and Boeing over the company’s decision to transfer an airplane production line from Washington state to a non-union facility in South Carolina.
On April 20, the NLRB issued a complaint against Boeing saying it violated the law by transferring the line from Washington for discriminatory reasons.
In a letter from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, signed by Cuccinelli and attorneys general from seven other states, the AGs decry the complaint as “an assault upon the constitutional right of free speech, and the ability of our states to create jobs and recruit industry.”
“It is South Carolina and Boeing today, but will be any of our states, with our right to work guarantees, tomorrow,” the letter reads. “This unparalleled and overreaching action seeks to drive a stake through the heart of the free enterprise system.”
But a spokeswoman for the National Labor Relations Board said the complaint has nothing to do with state right-to-work laws, and that it simply says that Boeing decided to locate a particular line of work in a non-union facility to retaliate against union employees who had engaged in legally protected strike activity.
A hearing has been set before an administrative law judge in Seattle in June.
