US House Votes to Curtail Protections on Private Sector Workers’ Right to Strike

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=4593

Posted at: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 04:28:17 PM
Author: Clayton Sinyai



Last week, by a vote of 238 to 186, the US House voted to strip the National Labor Relations Board of one of its powers – the power to stop companies from transferring work to punish workers who organize a union or strike their employer. HR 2587, known to sponsors as the ‘Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act’ and to opponents as the ‘Job Outsourcers’ Bill of Rights,’ is not expected to pass the Senate.

The move was inspired by the now-notorious Boeing case, in which the aircraft manufacturer decided to start a new production line in Charleston, SC rather than simply expanding production its main facilities in Washington state. Of itself, this is unremarkable, and if Boeing’s corporate officers had kept their own counsel – or attributed the move to a thousand different conventional business rationales – there would be no legal dispute. But Boeing CEO Jim McNerney told the Seattle Times that “strikes happening every three or four years at Puget sound” were the real reason for the move – turning what had been a routine corporate decision into a potentially illegal act.

FULL story at link.

[rpannier]

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