BA Boeing Co

By Doug Cameron 

A group of workers at Boeing Co's large plane-making facility in South Carolina will vote on union representation later this month after labor regulators on Monday cleared a path for a fresh ballot.

The facility producing 787 Dreamliner jets in North Charleston has become a battleground for relations between organized labor and Boeing that could affect where the company manufactures future aircraft models.

The National Labor Relations Board on Monday said 178 technicians at the facility were an appropriate bargaining unit, with a vote to organize within the International Association of Machinists union set for May 31.

The move comes 15 months after 74% of the nearly 3,000 hourly staff at Boeing's plants around Charleston, which assemble 787 jets and other parts, voted against joining a union. That hard-fought campaign drew criticism from both sides over the tactics employed to sway workers.

Lead union negotiator Mike Evans said the labor board's decision on Monday countered Boeing's "delay tactics" over union representation in the state, where it also has a design and research center.

Boeing didn't immediately comment.

The Charleston plants, established seven years ago, have already become the sole assembly facility for the new 787-10, the largest member of the Dreamliner family. Boeing decided to establish the Charleston plant in 2009 and opened the facility two years later as an alternative to its main plane-making operations around Seattle, which are heavily unionized and have a history of strife between labor and management.

The company was attracted to South Carolina because of its right-to-work legislation -- the state has the lowest union participation rate in the U.S. Executives campaigned against the bid to organize the Charleston facilities, maintaining that unionization would reduce the plants' efficiency.

Boeing began building up its Charleston operations by acquiring a plant from a troubled supplier in 2009. A union-led effort in 2015 to organize workers and call a vote failed to win sufficient backing.

Boeing is the largest U.S. exporter by dollar value and has a large backlog of plane orders. It has been pursued by states seeking more of its commercial jet and military work, according to company and union officials.

Write to Doug Cameron at doug.cameron@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 21, 2018 18:58 ET (22:58 GMT)

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