Boeing wasted little time responding. Beverly Wyse, Boeing South Carolina’s vice president and general manager, said:
Boeing South Carolina teammates have done what so many people said couldn’t be done. And they did it by working together, engaging every day, and truly committing themselves to the success of our site. And let’s be really clear, the IAM was not part of this success — it was our [Boeing South Carolina] teammates. In fact, the IAM aggressively opposed it, as publicly demonstrated by their filing of a claim with the National Labor Relations Board, to try to keep our site from even opening. Now, simply by filing this petition, the same union that tried to take our jobs and our work, has already begun to divide our team at a time when we’re just beginning to gel and catch a solid rhythm in production.
In its press release announcing the filing with the NLRB, the union noted:
Workers at Boeing had reached out to the IAM regarding numerous workplace concerns, including forced overtime, fair wages and a lack of respect on the shop floor. … Efforts by Boeing workers to form a union have already been met with stiff resistance from Boeing management and outside political forces looking to advance their own agendas. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley recently used her State of the State address to attack the IAM and the Boeing workers who are seeking union representation.
The IAM local representing Boeing workers in the Seattle area reluctantly approved a 10-year contract with the company in January of 2014 after having rejected essentially the same deal the previous November and over a recommendation from local union leaders to reject the January contract. The international union forced the local union to hold that election and refused to allow a recount when the contract was approved by a reported margin of 600 votes out of some 23,000 cast. The Seattle-area local counts about 31,000 members.
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