Boeing, union urged to settle dispute

June 15, 2011|Bloomberg News

Boeings new North Charleston, S.C., plant is nonunion. (Stephen Morton/Bloomberg…)

SEATTLE — Boeing Co. and the Machinists were urged to settle a dispute over a new, nonunion 787 Dreamliner plant in South Carolina by the administrative law judge who began hearing the case yesterday.

“Settlement always needs to be considered, particularly when the parties have an ongoing relationship,’’ Judge Clifford Anderson said.

The National Labor Relations Board claims Boeing violated Machinists’ rights to strike by building the company’s first commercial plant outside the Seattle area to avoid future work stoppages.

The case may take four to six months and extend to five years if either party appeals the decision, Anderson said. “All it generates is acrimony,’’ he said.

Boeing cited a need for production stability in choosing South Carolina for the plant, which will replicate 787 work already begun in Everett, Wash. The decision came after the Machinists’ 26,000 union members stopped work for two months in 2008, their fourth strike since 1989.

Michael Luttig, the Chicago-based company’s general counsel, has said he expects to lose the labor case and will appeal to the Supreme Court if needed. Boeing, which filed a motion to dismiss the case yesterday, rejected a settlement proposal from the union at the end of May as unreasonable. That offer sought a commitment to build Boeing’s next new jet in Washington.