Production workers at Boeing’s North Charleston plant voted overwhelmingly Wednesday against joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, handing the union another setback in its long effort to organize the 787 Dreamliner operation.
Of about 3,000 eligible employees, 2,828 cast ballots, and 2,097 of them, or 74%, voted against the union, Boeing said in a statement reported by Aviation International News. The Post and Courier reported the same count. That left 731 votes for the union, the aviation site Leeham News reported. The National Labor Relations Board conducted the election.
“We will continue to move forward as one team,” said Joan Robinson-Berry, vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina. “We have a bright future ahead of us and we’re eager to focus on the accomplishments of this great team and to developing new opportunities.”
The vote comes two days before Boeing rolls out its first 787-10, the newest and largest Dreamliner, which will be built only in North Charleston. President Donald Trump is expected to attend Friday’s event, AIN reported.
“It is great to have this vote behind us as we come together to celebrate that event,” Robinson-Berry said, according to NPR.
The union’s response
In a statement Wednesday night, the IAM said hourly production workers had voted not to join the union “at the present time.”
“We’re disappointed the workers at Boeing South Carolina will not yet have the opportunity to see all the benefits that come with union representation,” said Mike Evans, the IAM’s lead organizer. “But more than anything, we are disheartened they will have to continue to work under a system that suppresses wages, fosters inconsistency and awards only a chosen few.”
The union said workers faced an anti-union campaign that included captive-audience meetings and heavy spending on TV, radio and billboard ads. Under NLRB rules, workers must wait a year before another vote on union representation, and the union said it would stay in touch with supporters.
“Ultimately it will be the workers who dictate what happens next,” Evans said.
A long fight over the plant
The vote is the latest round in a long dispute between Boeing and the Machinists over the North Charleston site. The union won the right to represent workers at Vought Aircraft Industries’ North Charleston plant in 2007, a plant Boeing later bought, The Associated Press reported. Less than two years later, workers there voted overwhelmingly against union representation.
Boeing then chose North Charleston for its second 787 final assembly line in 2009. In 2011, responding to a charge from the Machinists, the NLRB’s acting general counsel issued a complaint alleging that Boeing put the plant in South Carolina to retaliate for union strikes in Washington state, Bloomberg reported. The board dropped the case after the Machinists in Washington approved a four-year contract extension with Boeing.
The Machinists petitioned for a vote at the North Charleston plant nearly two years ago but called it off, saying organizers had been threatened during home visits with employees, according to the AP. Bloomberg News reported that the 2015 attempt fizzled amid anti-union campaigning and political pressure led by then-Gov. Nikki Haley, who is now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The campaign this time
The IAM and Boeing agreed on Jan. 27 to hold the vote Feb. 15, the union said at the time. The IAM said it represents more than 35,000 Boeing employees at 24 locations nationwide.
Boeing ran 485 local TV spots between Jan. 31 and Feb. 6 urging workers to vote against the union, and anti-union ads from the South Carolina Manufacturers Institute had aired 350 times by Feb. 6, Bloomberg News reported, citing ad tracker Kantar Media/CMAG. The IAM ran ads of its own featuring Boeing union members in Puget Sound, according to Bloomberg.
The union accused managers of stoking fears about dues and strikes. Boeing spokeswoman Elizabeth Merida told Bloomberg in an email that “we are not making threats or asking teammates how they will vote or what they think of the union.”
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham opposed the organizing drive. “To people who work at Boeing, you have every right to vote the way you like. I’m urging you as a senator from South Carolina to choose wisely,” Graham told reporters at his Mount Pleasant office days before the vote, the Charleston City Paper reported. “If we destroy the business model that led Boeing to South Carolina, this plant will not be able to grow.”
The day before the election, a dozen U.S. senators led by Sherrod Brown of Ohio issued a joint statement supporting the union drive, the IAM said.
South Carolina is a right-to-work state, meaning workers cannot be required to join a union. Its union membership rate of 1.6% is the lowest in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the AP reported.
Boeing employs about 8,000 people in North Charleston, where it builds the 787, according to the AP.
