Legislators Calling For WA to Become Right-To-Work State After Boeing Contract Rejection

The machinists union vote to reject Boeing's contract offer is bringing with it a firestorm of criticism aimed at labor unions.

State Senators Mike Baumgartner (GOP) Spokane,  and others are demanding another special legislative session to make Washington a state where employees have the right to vote on whether they wish to join a union, and pay dues.

South Carolina is such a state, and the machinists union has been targeting Boeing workers there to unionize, but without success.

Boeing has been very proactive in it's sometimes bitter dealings with labor unions over the years, including moving many of it's aircraft assembly processes away from Everett to South Carolina and other venues.   According to Northwest Cable News,  Boeing is living up to it's statement this week that the company is not bluffing about possibly moving the new 777x project away from Washington:

'The company announced Thursday it will not negotiate with the Machinists union again until 2016.

There's been speculation that Boeing may be targeting cities in Alabama, California, South Carolina, Texas and Utah to build the 777x. All of those states except California are right-to-work states, according to the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation."

Senator Baumgartner says every individual should "have the right to join a union, and the right to not join a union, should they so choose."

This week, the machinist workers union who rejected the contract accused Boeing of trying to pay them "South Carolina" wages, a stab at the non-union workers at the company's newly moved facilities.   Union critics say the actual difference between union and non-union wages at Boeing are not that far off.