April 25, 2011--Your Own Facts

We had finished breakfast and Rona was looking over the check. It would be our last morning at the Green Owl before heading north, and we were feeling blue having to say goodbye to good friends who we won't see for a number of months.

"It's the one bad thing living the way we do," Rona said, "This endless cycle of saying goodbye."

Trying to put the best face on things, I said, "True. But we get to see our New York friends again before heading to others in Maine."

"Who before too long we'll also be leaving." There was no getting around the truth of what she was saying.

With that, Harvey burst through the door, heading right toward us. It was after ten and late for him since he has a real job running an insurance agency. What could be up, I wondered.

"Are you all right? I mean, shouldn't you be in the office?"

"I know you're leaving tomorrow and . . ." I thought, how nice, he came by to wish us a good drive. ". . . and there's something that's really upsetting me about what you wrote the other day about Obama. Boy, are you selling out to him. Saying Republicans like me aren't giving him any credit for improvements in the economy."

I should have known he came by to get in one more argument before we head out. Saying goodbye was not on his mind.

"You mean the one in which I took note of the full 50 percent increase in stock market averages since he took office?"

"That's the one. You really are in the tank for him."

"Unlike you," I rejoindered, "who can barely manage one word of criticism about any of your Republican friends, not even the likes of Michele Bachmann. I try to be fair and balanced." I knew that appropriating his favorite Fox News' tag line would upset him.

"Very funny," he said. "It's a gross overstatement to give Obama, or any president, credit for what happens in the stock market."

"Even a 50 percent run up in a little more than two years? Or saving GM and Chrysler? Don't you think that means something? God knows you guys are not reluctant to blame him for unemployment, the deficit, the continuing housing crisis. So why won't you ever assign credit for something that's going well? Even admitting that the Dow Jones Average is not the meaning of life."

"This is not what I came in to talk about."

"I know, you came in to say goodbye and tell us how much you'll miss us."

He ignored that but said, "It's about what all those Obama Democrats are doing on the Labor Relations Board."

"This I admit I haven't been following," I said. "And what would that be?"

"Well since your beloved New York Times probably hasn't said anything about it yet, from your perspective it doesn't exist."

"I'm not following you."

"As usual." I ignored that. "I'm talking about how the Labor Board, now packed with Democrats, who are of course on the payroll of the unions, is moving to not allow Boeing to open a new plant in South Carolina."

"Huh?"

"You heard me. They're claiming that they are doing that because Boeing workers struck the company at least five times since 1977, one time in 2008 for 58 days, and in South Carolina there won't be any strikes. The Board sees this as a strategy to break the union."

"And don't you?"

"I see it as a smart move designed to keep jobs in the U.S. because the alternative, if they can't relocate at least some of the manufacturing in places like South Carolina, the alternative is to move more of their plants overseas. Which they've already begun to do."

"This sounds crazy to me," I said. "I do know, though, that parts for the new Dreamliner will be made in numerous locations, including some overseas."

"Look, those strikes cost Boeing and our economy big time. It gave a huge advantage to Airbus, their big competitor."

"You've been spending too much time watching Fox News. As I've said to you previously, before we have these kinds of discussions we have to begin by looking at the facts. I keep quoting Senator Moynihan who said, 'You're entitled to you own opinions but not you own facts.'"

"Well, in regard to the facts about this, for you they are obviously in short supply. Do a little homework, OK? And, oh," checking his watch, "I have to go. I have a business to run. Have a good trip."

"In spite of everything," with a smile, shaking his hand and even moving to give him a goodbye hug, I said, "I'll miss you."

"Me too," he said over his shoulder as he ran out the door.

And wouldn't you know it, in the business section of the Times that I read later that day, there was a piece about this very thing; and most of what Harvey had claimed--the facts--were pretty much as he had presented them. I had to acknowledge that he did his homework better than I. But in this case only.

It's a complicated issue. A bit more so than Harvey suggested. You can get the full story from the article linked below; but in brief, here is what appears to be at issue:

Seeking cheaper and more dependable labor, Boeing did build a $2.0 billion assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina and hired 1,000 non-unionized workers. Not incidentally, Boeing, since 2009, added 2,000 unionized workers in the state of Washington. So what they have been up to in regard to labor relations is complicated.

The N.L.R.B. is in fact seeking to require Boeing to move the South Carolina plant to Washington. Boeing, obviously, is strenuously objecting.

I am not clear, nor is anything I have thus far read, about the Labor Board's powers in such circumstances. A neutral party, Samuel Estreicher, an NYU law professor, says that in general the Obama board's actions have not been out of line with its Republican predecessors'; but he supports Boeing's contention that companies vulnerable to disabling strikes should be allowed to move operations to places where unions are weaker. It is not, he claims, the intention of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act to give the Board such broad powers.

I think I agree. And, thus, with Harvey as well. He and I still have very different views about the continuing need for unions, but about Boeing we are in synch. Based on the facts.

As I said, I'll miss him.