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Human Events...
The Mobility of
Capital
How about a gutsy call on the NLRB, Mr. President?
by John Hayward
05/11/2011
South Carolina governor Nikki Haley held a press conference with
business leaders and Republican lawmakers today, where they demanded
President Obama address the National Labor Relations Board’s attempt to
drag Boeing kicking and screaming out of right-to-work South Carolina,
back to the unions of Washington State.
The NLRB maintains that Boeing tried to open its new Dreamliner
production line in South Carolina as part of an illegal attempt to
“punish” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace
Workers, which has gone on strike against the company in the past.
Governor Haley called this “an unbelievable attack on not just
right-to-work states, but every state that is attempting to put their
people to work.”
“On one hand,” added South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, “the
federal government is telling businesses if you move to a right-to-work
state then we will come after you. On the other hand, the NLRB is
telling businesses if you move to a union state, you’re stuck and
cannot expand elsewhere.” He said the NLRB complaint against
Boeing makes union states “the economic development equivalent of a
roach motel: you can check in, but you can’t check out.”
“It is absurd in this country that represents free enterprise that one
unaccountable, unelected, unconfirmed acting general counsel can
threaten thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investments,”
said South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint. “This is something that
would happen in a third world country, not in America. I can’t
believe the administration is sitting on the sidelines, pretending they
had nothing to do with it.”
The unconfirmed acting general counsel DeMint referred to is Lafe
Solomon, who wants to prosecute Boeing under the unprecedented
assertion that the National Labor Relations Act gives workers a
“fundamental right to strike,” which the government must enforce by
pinning targeted corporations in place and forcing them to suffer the
effects.
Back in the 80s, Craig Becker, now a member of the NLRB, wrote in the
Harvard Law Review that the right of labor to engage in collective
action “implicitly entails legal restraint of the freedom of
capital.” He concluded that the greatest threat to “labor’s
collective legal rights” was “the mobility of capital, which courts
have held immune from popular control.”
In other words, a company like Boeing can move its capital away from a
predatory labor union, and seek a more equitable arrangement with
non-union labor in a different state. The government is therefore
obliged to use legal force to freeze Boeing’s capital in place.
No escape for you, enemy of the worker. Might as well make
yourself comfortable in that roach motel.
This kind of tyrannical government over-reach puts the very notion of
ownership at risk. Boeing doesn’t actually plan to “move” a
production facility to South Carolina – they’re not shutting down any
operations in Washington State. They’ve decided to open a new
facility to build Dreamliner aircraft in South Carolina instead of
Washington. The NLRB is essentially saying that Boeing doesn’t
even own its intellectual capital fully. Even the mobility of the
Dreamliner concept must be restricted. Even ideas must be frozen
in amber, for the benefit of Washington State unions, at the expense of
South Carolina workers eager to win Boeing’s business.
Over the past hundred years, government has gone from the buster of
trusts and destroyer of monopolies, to the most powerful
anti-competitive force in America. Unions will be less reluctant
to flex their muscles with strikes and excessive demands if they know
they are protected from vigorous competition in right-to-work
states. The NLRB is telling Boeing that it must purchase its
labor from an absolute monopoly, the International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Removing the competition from
capitalism through such practices produces a lifeless disaster called
“capitalism” only by politicians seeking to escape responsibility for
its creation.
The mobility of capital is an essential component of ownership.
That makes it offensive to government bureaucrats who think they own
everything. Boeing’s plight recalls that of property owners who
find their land rendered worthless by government regulations. Of
course they still “own” their land, but they can’t do anything with
it. You do not own something you cannot use, or move.
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has called upon President Obama to withdraw
Lafe Solomon’s appointment to the NLRB. Governor Haley and her
colleagues in South Carolina want the President to speak up on behalf
of Boeing. If he leaves Solomon in place and remains silent, then
Barack Obama is the one killing those jobs in South Carolina. As
Attorney General Wilson put it, “The President’s silence is his
consent.”
Read it at Human Events
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