Boeing Workers Reject a Union in South Carolina -
NORTH CHARLESTON, S. C. — Union organizers fell far short on Wednesday in a bid to enlist workers at Boeing’s
South Carolina facilities in what was widely viewed as an early test of labor’s strength in the Trump era.
Hoyt N. Wheeler, an emeritus professor of business at the University of South Carolina who taught labor relations and employment law, said in an interview before the vote
that a victory would be “highly significant” because “one of Boeing’s motivations for coming to South Carolina was to escape the union.”
The election took on added significance because of the emphasis President Trump has placed on domestic manufacturing, and on Boeing in particular.
Many analysts say that Boeing decided to put its second Dreamliner aircraft assembly line in the state to reduce the leverage of the machinists’ union, which represents Boeing’s work force in the Puget Sound region of Washington State
and has used work stoppages to exact concessions from the company in the past.
The union vote came almost two years after the machinists called off a scheduled vote at Boeing’s South Carolina facilities
amid what they described as widespread misinformation from management and unrelenting pressure from local politicians.
In South Carolina, interviews with Boeing workers suggested
that the union had a chance of succeeding because the company had failed to defuse some of the frustrations it had promised to address before the previously scheduled vote.
“They can start coming in in the mornings, and they’ll also know what they’re doing each day.”
In addition to fairer evaluations and more consistent work instructions, the union’s aims included higher wages for production
and maintenance workers in South Carolina, who make about $23 per hour on average, versus about $31 per hour for comparable workers in Washington State.