S.C. Gov. Haley: Congressional pressure good in NLRB-Boeing fight

Pressure from members of South Carolina's congressional delegation to intervene in a national labor dispute over a Boeing assembly line has been helpful in showing President Barack Obama that the state is serious about protecting its employers, Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday.

"As governor, my job is to create jobs. What the president has done is fight me every step of the way," Haley said during a phone call with reporters. "What we're doing is showing that this doesn't just affect us on the state level, but the federal delegation will step up as well and make sure that our voices are heard loud and clear from South Carolina that this bullying has got to stop, and that we're not going to allow them to attack Boeing the way they have."

Haley, a Republican, spoke a day ahead of her expected testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is meeting Friday in North Charleston to probe a National Labor Relations Board lawsuit.

The federal board sued Chicago-based Boeing Co. in April, accusing the aircraft manufacturer of breaking the law when it built a non-union 787 passenger jet assembly line in South Carolina - a right-to-work state - instead of Washington state, where most 787s are assembled by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The NLRB says that decision was made to retaliate against unionized Washington state workers, and an administrative judge in Seattle began considering the case this week. Boeing has challenged the labor board complaint, saying no work was removed or transferred from Washington and that no union member lost a job.

Work begins next month on the first 787 at the $750 million North Charleston plant, the largest single industrial investment in state history. The first South Carolina aircraft is expected to fly in 2012.

Haley, who has made no secret of her opposition to unions, is also a defendant in a federal lawsuit by the machinists and the AFL-CIO. They want Haley and state labor department head Catherine Templeton ordered to remain neutral in union matters. When Haley nominated Templeton last December, she said her background would be helpful in state fights against unions, particularly at the new Boeing plant.

U.S. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a longtime union critic who sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the NLRB seeking documents including communications with senior union officials, spoke out Wednesday about the dispute. He noted that Boeing has actually added union jobs since the South Carolina plant's inception.

"This administration should be celebrating Boeing. Since Boeing decided to build a new plant in South Carolina, they've added 2,000 union jobs in Washington state and more than 1,000 jobs in South Carolina," DeMint said on CBS' "The Early Show."

"At a time when we're begging for jobs, again, Boeing has done the right thing. ... It was not retaliation," he added.

Haley said Thursday she will continue to try to press the administration to step in and halt the lawsuit.

"The only thing that can right this wrong is for the president to tell the NLRB to back off," Haley said. "And until that happens, it is my job to be loud and annoying and in his face until he realizes that what they have done is wrong, and he did it to one of our own American companies, and this has got to stop."

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Kinnard can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.