Friday, September 16, 2011

Why Did Himes Vote Against HR 2587?

HR 2587 is a bill that, "blocks the federal government's National Labor Relations Board from telling businesses where they can and can’t create new jobs."  The bill came about since the NLRB is trying to block Boeing from building its new Dreamliner in non-unionized South Carolina. Presumably, the NLRB prefers Boeing build the plane in unionized Washington. The NLRB claims Boeing is illegally "retaliating" against the unions for striking, while Boeing claims no employee in Washington is losing his/her job, no employee is getting a pay cut, so there is no harm, hence, no retaliation. Boeing has admitted, one of the reasons for locating the new production facility in South Carolina was to mitigate the risk of production disruptions caused by strikes. 


It seems rather simple to us. Boeing has the right to locate a plant where it desires and the NLRB's action has a chilling impact on Boeing, and all investors looking to build or expand production facilities in the US. Interestingly, if Boeing built the facility overseas the NLRB would have no jurisdiction. So in a perverse way, the NLRB is encouraging companies to move production out of the US.

HR2587 came up for vote on September 15, and Representative Himes voted against the bill. 

We have not heard any explanation from Mr. Himes for his rationale. In fact we've heard very little from Mr. Himes for the past 30 days, other than a couple of recent suggestions on how we could get more from the Federal Government and how his office was ready to assist us in that endeavor.  

We had relatively high hopes for Mr. Himes upon election. He seemed like a smart, moderate Democrat. Instead, like the President, he has shown himself to be a radical, implementing policies that make our economic situation worse.





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