Rounding up the most recent news and commentary about the National Labor Relations Board’s complaint against The Boeing Company for locating new production facilities in South Carolina instead of the unionized Puget Sound region…

At Slate.com, Dave Weigel interviews Bill Gould, a former Democratic member appointed to the NLRB by President Clinton. From “Air Rage”

“The Boeing case is unprecedented,” he says. “I agree with much of what this board has done and is likely to do, but I don’t agree with what the general counsel has done in the Boeing case. The general counsel is trying to equate an employer’s concern with strikes that disrupt production and make it difficult to make deadlines—he’s trying to equate that with hostility toward trade unionism. I don’t think that makes sense.”

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt asks Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) about NLRB’s move against Boeing.

MM: Unbelievable, isn’t it? The federal government is now, through the NLRB, going to tell you where you can locate your plant. You know, a lot of these big, global businesses, their response to that might be well, I’ll locate my plant in Mexico. I mean, I think that this is truly outrageous. This is the same administration who has now tried to introduce politics into the procurement process by making people who do business with the government reveal their political support for candidates. This is a Chicago-style thuggish administration. In other words, agree with us, or we’ll find a way to punish you.

HH: Have any of your colleagues across the aisle privately said to you we’ve got to stop this Boeing nonsense, people are losing jobs in South Carolina?

MM: I think there are 11 Democratic Senators in right to work states. And I’ve not heard from them yet, but this issue is just starting. One of my colleagues told me earlier today that the NLRB, either in its initial order, or in some utterance since then, basically said in order to, (laughing) you need to build ten more planes in Seattle. Now does this mean the government’s now going to tell you not only where you can be, but how many of your products you can make?

Hmmm….That seems far-fetched, but there have been indications the NLRB wants a settlement. (Shopfloor, “NLRB Already Talking about a Settlement.”)

Robert Costa at National Review Online interviews Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). From “DeMint on NLRB: ‘Smacks of Dictatorship’“:

“I have seen a lot of absurd things come out of this administration,” DeMint sighs. “But the absurdity here is pretty amazing. This involves the right of a company to decide where to locate its business. I cannot believe that the president has not spoken out about it. This kind of thing should not happen in America.”

“This is not about South Carolina,” DeMint notes. “This is about every American company and every state, and not just right-to-work states. This will also hurt the forced-union states. Why would a company, like BMW for example, locate in a union state if they know that they could not move or expand?”