Pelosi: South Carolina Boeing Plant Should Unionize or Shut Down

Lachlan Markay / October 31, 2011

In an interview late last week, House Minority Leaeder Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNBC that Boeing should either unionize its production facilities in South Carolina, or shut them down entirely.

“Do you think it’s right that Boeing has to close down that plant in South Carolina because it’s non union?” asked host Maria Bartiromo. Pelosi’s reply: “Yes.”

The minority leader quickly added that she would rather it simply unionize and stay open. But barring unionization, by Pelosi’s reasoning, it should simply shut down.

Boeing is the target of a suit from the National Labor Relations Board, which accused the company of retaliation against a machinists’ union in its decision to open a new plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, instead of Washington State.

Pelosi may or may not know that workers at the South Carolina plant in question voted resoundingly (199-68) to decertify their union two years ago. Government policies that would close the plant for being a non-union shop would simply be punishing those workers for exercising their right to determine union representation for themselves.

“The Administration is trying to foist unions on workers, whether they want them or not, whether union representation would help them or not,” Heritage’s James Sherk noted in response to Pelosi’s statement. As for the more general issue of Boeing’s suit, Sherk called it “a good way of discouraging businesses from building new factories or plants.”