By Liz Iacobucci on the NH Labor News.
Boeing’s Dreamliner was in the news again last week: one plane caught fire at Heathrow Airport; and a second experienced a “technical issue” and returned to its originating airport.
When I heard that news, I couldn’t help thinking about the announcement that gunmaker Sturm, Ruger would be opening a new factory in Mayodan, North Carolina, rather than expanding their facility here. Don’t get the connection? Let me explain.
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After Ruger’s announcement last week, the spinmeisters went into overdrive. The way they spun things, this was a rejection of New Hampshire’s supposedly union-friendly atmosphere. (Done laughing yet? The Granite State isn’t exactly a hotbed of union activity; only 12% of our workers are covered by a collective bargaining agreement. West Virginia, Nevada and Montana all have higher “union density” rates. Alaska and Hawaii, their union-representation rates are almost twice what it is here. So you just gotta wonder about people who say New Hampshire is “friendly” to unions.)
By last Thursday, the spinmeisters – and the Union Leader – had twisted Ruger’s facility-siting decision into some sort of referendum on (so-called) Right to Work legislation.
