New documents released yesterday raise troubling questions about how the Republican Party and Boeing both tried to intimidate the National Labor Relations Board to stop the federal agency from ruling that the company illegally moved work from a union Washington plant to a nonunion South Carolina plant. Ironically, the documents were obtained from the independent agency, which enforces federal labor law, as part of a subpoena issued by House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darell Issa (R-Calif).
On April 11, 2011, nine days prior to the NLRB filing its complaint against Boeing, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called NLRB General Counsel Lafe Solomon to persuade him not to file the complaint. “He said that if a complaint was filed, it will be ‘nasty,’ ‘very, very nasty,’ ” Solomon wrote in notes about the phone call. “He said that if complaint issued, he was going ‘full guns a-blazing.’”
The conversation could raise serious ethical questions and lead to ethic probes of Graham for undue interference with an ongoing investigation. Last spring, the International Association of Machinists filed a complaint claiming that Graham violated Senate Rule 43 by interfering and trying to prevent a law enforcement trial.
Graham does not deny the conversation. In statement released to the press Graham said: “In saying that I would be ‘going guns a-blazing,’ I meant that I would vigorously criticize the NLRB and actively work to protect the economic interests of South Carolina. Those statements were made to convey to Mr. Solomon the political uproar that would occur both in South Carolina and nationally if the complaint was filed.”
The documents also indicated an unwillingness on the part of Boeing to attempt to reach a settlement with the union before the case was brought to court; apparently the company was more willing to go the political route of fighting the case. On March 18, Boeing General Counsel Michael Luttig called Solomom to say that Boeing would “go to the Hill” against the NLRB if the agency filed a complaint against Boeing:
He told me that he was ‘miffed,’ that although he had done what I asked [redacted] I was still considering issuing complaint,” Solomon wrote in his notes. “He told me that rather than accept that offer, he thought that he would go to the Hill to prevent me from litigating the case. I told him that he would have to get such a rider through the Senate.
I said that I had the CEO on tape saying that the move to SC was not because of economics but because the Machinists strike. I said I had a triable case and that I would do whatever I thought was right under the NLRA. But I reiterated that I thought the parties should meet and try to reach a settlement.
The revelations that both Senator Lindsey Graham and Boeing threatened Solomon with political intervention in the case have upset congressional Democrats.
“No corporation should be able to discriminate against American workers and then avoid accountability for its actions by using its political influence in Congress to seek to undermine the rule of law,” said House Oversight and Government Reforms Ranking Members Congressman Elijah E Cummings (D-Md.) in a statement. “These new documents raise serious concerns that this may be exactly what happened in this case. The ongoing legal proceeding should be allowed to take its full course without any further interference from members of Congress.”
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