The National Labor Relations Board has sought a court order that would have required Boeing to maintain its second 787 assembly line in the Pacific Northwest, not at the plant being built in North Charleston.

Boeing’s $750 million aircraft plant in North Charleston is at the heart of a growing labor rift, pitting the aerospace giant against one of its biggest unions and now a Feder agency. The National Labor Relations Board sued the company, saying Boeing shifted some of its 787 Dream-liner production to South Carolina partly to retaliate against the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers for past strikes in Washington state. The NLRB sought a court order that would require Boeing to maintain its second 787 assembly line in the Pacific Northwest, and IAMAW stronghold. If successful, that could stop Boeing from building the plane in North Charleston. Boeing said that it plans to “vigorously contest” the lawsuit. “This claim is legally frivolous and represents a radical departure from both NLRB and Supreme Court precedent,” said J. Michael Luttig, Boeing’s general counsel. The lawsuit alleges that the company engaged in unfair labor practices in 2009 when it picked Charleston International Airport as the site of its second 787 assembly plant rather than expand its existing, unionized Dream-liner factory in Everett, Washington. 

Question: Do you think that as a manager you should be able to locate your plant in another state in order to reduce costs? Should the Federal Government be able to sue a company to stop a firm from setting up a plant elsewhere within the U.S.A.?