In a loss that was doubly concerning for non-union employers, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) won an organizing election of a sub-set of machinists at Boeing’s newly opened North Charleston, South Carolina aircraft assembly plant.

The first concern about this union win is that it was of a micro-unit of workers in the larger Boeing facility. A micro bargaining unit was first deemed legal by the National Labor Relations Board during the Obama Administration, but the micro unit ruling was overturned last December.  The old NRLB “community of interest standard” states that the NLRB decides on a per-case basis whether the group to be organized is “appropriate” for collective bargaining.  This was re-instated in December.

For most of the NLRB’s history, the union had to demonstrate an “interest by all common employees” (wall to wall) in a facility or organization in order to hold an election. Smaller units of the same body of workers were not allowed to separately organize. The community of interest test involved looking at several factors, including whether the employees:

(1) Are organized into a separate department

(2) Have distinct skills and training

(3) Have distinct job functions and perform distinct work, including inquiry into the amount and type of job overlap between classifications

(4) Are functionally integrated with the employer’s other employees

(5) Have frequent contact with other employees

(6) Interchange with other employees

(7) Have distinct terms and conditions of employment

(8) Are separately supervised

In the Boeing determination, the NLRB contradicted its recent decision in its PCC Structurals case and found sufficient overwhelming community of interest among just 169 workers, which allowed the Boeing micro-unit to vote on union representation. The result was an election win for the IAM – 104 workers voting for the union and 65 against. This smaller unit is part of 3,000 total workers that had previously been certified as a bargaining unit and had previously voted the union down – twice.

The second concern for non-union employers, particularly in the south is that the IAM won this election in the anti-union, right-to-work state of South Carolina, where the number of unionized employees is less than 3% of the state’s workforce. 

Reasons for the Boeing loss were many. Boeing management may not have been taking this election as seriously as it should have after winning two previous organizing attempts there. In fact, it was reported the chief executive at Boeing Commercial Airplanes admitted he wasn’t listening to worker issues and concerns in this area of the operation. Another reason the company may not have been concerned is they believed the micro-unit was not a legal unit, and they have appealed the certification and election loss on those grounds.

Regardless of the labor law and other rationale, a union win at a Boeing plant located in anti-union South Carolina, away from the expensive collective bargaining in its home state of Washington, is a big philosophical win for organized labor and may stand out as a small but tell-tail sign workers may be turning to unions once again.

Sources: NLRB Board Overrules Specialty Healthcare, Eliminates “Overwhelming Community of Interest” Standard 12/15/2017. Insight What's Appropriate: The NLRB Overturns Specialty Healthcare BY GREGORY BROWN AND RICK MARKS ON DECEMBER 19, 2017; The Post and Courier Boeing's flight line workers in North Charleston vote for union, giving organized labor a boost in South 5/31/2018