It appears the anti-capitalism branch of the US Government, called the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), will have someone else to intimidate after they recently completed their shakedown of Boeing.

Bloomberg Business Week reported a few days ago that Caterpillar, who is headquartered in Illinois, will seek another state to build its newest manufacturing plant.

“Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment, won’t choose its home state of Illinois as the site of a new factory costing about $150 million, according to local officials.”

“The company told Peoria County it will build the plant in another state, Lori Curtis Luther, the county’s administrator, said in a telephone interview today. Jim Dugan, a spokesman for Peoria-based Caterpillar, declined to comment.”

In a saner time, American businesses were free to choose any location to build their facilities based on a number of factors that benefited not only the company but their share holders.  But after the NLRB’s attack of Boeing for building its new plant in South Carolina instead of the Strike prone state of Washington, there is a new business climate in America that allows the NLRB, which is loaded with Union stooges, to dictate where businesses can expand. 

As it turns out, the NLRB will only allow companies the freedom follow sound business practices once the Unions have received their monetary bribe from the target company.  Recall that the NLRB dropped the charges against Boeing only after the International Association of Machinists received a bribe from Boeing.  This was outlined in an article from The Economist:

“It seems that the NLRB, a legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, chose to drop the case only after it was asked to by representatives of the International Association of Machinists, the main Boeing union. The union told the government agency that it had just struck a lucrative deal with Boeing covering its workers in Washington State. With the deal done, the union no longer needed the government to hold a helpful gun to Boeing’s head.”

So get ready Caterpillar for the NLRB to dog you day and night once you start construction of your new facility in a Right to Work state.  Caterpillar should start the protection money payoffs now to the unions in Illinois to prevent future legal action.