In two actions destined to set blood to boiling and jugular veins to bulging on the left, Attorney Ken Cuccinelli is once again resisting the overreach of the imperial, I mean, federal government.
First, the Cooch has asked the U.S. Office of Surface Mining to back off its aggressive regulation of surface mining. The agency has expanded its regulatory role at the expense of the states, he asserts, even though Congress gave states primary responsibility when it passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The AG warned that he would litigate if the agency persists in overstepping its role.
Second, Cuccinelli has joined the state of South Carolina in protesting a National Labor Relations Board complaint against the Boeing Company as an assault on Right to Work. Boeing had the audacity to build a non-union facility in South Carolina to manufacture its new Dreamliner planes. Rather than organize the South Carolina workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers went to the NLRB. Lafe Solomon, NLRB’s acting counsel, obligingly declared that Boeing’s move represented an unlawful “retaliation” against the union for previous strikes and blocked the company from opening its plant.
If Solomon’s complaint is allowed to stand, it could give unions effective veto power over any company with union operations from setting up non-union operations in any right-to-work state, not just South Carolina. Cuccinelli sent a letter to the NLRB describing the complaint as “an assault upon the constitutional right of free speech, and the ability of our states to create jobs and recruit industry.” Solomon’s action, he added, seeks to destroy citizens’ freedom from compulsion to join unions.
While Cuccinelli is fighting to uphold the right to work, he ought to take a look at the recent decision by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to require union labor for the second phase of the Rail-to-Dulles heavy rail project. That’s a little closer to home than Boeing and South Carolina.
