Sen. DeMint: Labor Relations Board Attack Is Outrageous

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," May 5, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF “YOUR WORLD”: All right, to the dustup over unions trying to crack down on right-to-work states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I am for everybody having a job.

CAVUTO: No, you are not. No, you are not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: No, your preference is that they be union jobs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course my preference would be, because what is...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: You know what my preference is? My preference is for jobs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why wouldn’t you want people to have higher wages and...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... more job security?

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: My preference is for jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, see what you’re missing on the Fox Business Network? The federal labor board still refusing to drop a lawsuit against Boeing for creating jobs in South Carolina. President Obama gave the top two guys on the board their jobs.

But if my next guest has his way, they won’t be there for long.

With me now, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.

Senator, what’s going to happen here?

SEN. JIM DEMINT, R-S.C.: Well, Neil, welcome to South Carolina. We’re here waiting for the debate festivities tonight.

CAVUTO: Sure.

DEMINT: So I’m glad to be able to join you.

But one of most outrageous things I have seen this administration do - - and there have been many -- is for this Labor Relations Board to attack a company that moves a new production line -- it didn’t replace one -- it’s a new production line -- to a right-to-work state.

There are 22 right-to-work states where workers are not forced to join a union in order to get a job. And all of those states have a better job record, better population growth, better economies, because it’s a better place to do business.

So, the thugs here on this Labor Relations Board are trying to intimidate and, Boeing, try to make them spend money, and send a signal to every other business in the country not to locate in a right-to-work state.

What this is going to do, Neil, and you know it, is just encourage more companies to move out of our country to other countries where they can find a low-cost business environment.

CAVUTO: Well, have you gotten any response from -- from the White House on this?

DEMINT: I don’t expect to get response from the White House.

I’m continuing to work with attorneys general around the country, because, frankly, I think there’s been some -- something that goes beyond just bad politics here that we have to take issue with, this Labor Relations Board.

The folks who are doing it on the board went around the Senate nominating, confirmation process. The president used a recess appointment to put an old union crony on this. And this is more like a Third World country. We shouldn’t accept it in America.

And there are a number of us, a growing number of us, who are going to take this all the way to 2012 elections, if we have to, because this is such a bad precedent for the government to tell a company where they can locate.

CAVUTO: Well, let me -- when I was talking to this union representative on Fox Business Network last night, Senator, one thing he said is, there is a bit of a smoking gun here.

I don’t know whether this is a smoking gun, but I’ll bounce it off you -- that when Boeing went to South Carolina, it went there with the proviso being, don’t you guys even think of unionizing. You even think of unionizing, this ain’t happening.

Now, I don’t even know the legalities of that. At first blush, it doesn’t seem to be opening egregious assault. It’s just a preference. But -- but is that coercion, as this union representative was telling me?

DEMINT: No. And that did not happen.

The unions have been misrepresenting and reediting what the management at Boeing said when they moved. They’ve taken pieces of it. And it’s, frankly, not true. Boeing didn’t move here as retaliation. They have created 2,000 new jobs in Washington since they opened this new line.

The only thing is...

CAVUTO: So, in other -- in other words, they never took jobs away from Washington, which would be the quid pro quo you’d look for. And that didn’t happen, right?

DEMINT: No, the -- the work force at a plant that Boeing was taking over decertified on its own...

CAVUTO: Gotcha.

DEMINT: ... before Boeing decided to move here because it didn’t -- it did not work in a business model here in South Carolina. But this was not something that Boeing said was a make-or-break thing as far as them moving here.

CAVUTO: Understood.

Senator, we’re tight on time. We have this hard break. I apologize.  But, very quickly, this move that could prevent the debt ceiling from being blown, where Republicans would agree, Democrats would agree to spending targets and the like, but the thorny issues, like entitlements, Medicare, what have you, wouldn’t come up until after 2012, in other words make 2012 the litmus test by which you decide which way you go, spending cuts, tax increases, both, whatever.

What do you think of that?

DEMINT: It sounds like more smoke and mirrors to me. The spending targets, we...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: So, you wouldn’t vote -- you would not vote for that?

DEMINT: No. The -- the only thing that would encourage me to even let this thing go -- not that I would even vote for it -- is a balanced budget amendment that requires us to balance our budget.

CAVUTO: Gotcha.

DEMINT: If we’re not willing to balance our budget as a nation now, we will go bankrupt. There’s no question about it.

CAVUTO: All right.

DEMINT: That’s an absolute fact.

And, so, that’s the -- that’s what I’m going to insist on before we do anything to raise the debt ceiling.

CAVUTO: Senator, good seeing you. Thank you very much.

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