Local Boeing workers snubbed in settlement

Don't get Glenn Taubman wrong: He's glad the National Labor Relations Board union-busting case against Boeing Co. is over.

It's how it ended that bothers him.

Taubman, a staff attorney at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, represents the three local Boeing employees who won limited participation in the controversial case earlier this year. He said they received a copy of every legal paper filed over the summer and fall, yet they were not invited to participate in the concluding conference call among the varied parties.

During the Dec. 8 call, Administrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson considered whether he needed to hear from the attorney for Dennis Murray, Cynthia Ramaker and Meredith Going Sr. Lawyers from both Boeing and the International Association of Machinists discouraged the idea.

Wrapping up the call, Anderson said, "Even though I have finessed them here, they need to be informed," according to the call transcript.

A miffed Taubman responded last week: "We're certainly happy that the case is over, and that there appears to be protection for our clients and the Charleston workers, but the idea that they were excluded in this way shows how rigged the whole process was."

He said the way the case ended -- with a union contract extension in Washington somehow solving the South Carolina claims and then the 24-minute chat between the judge and the lawyers -- was "totally bizarre."

"They haven't heard the last of it," he said. "We're investigating our options of how to proceed in light of what we feel was a failing of the NLRB process."

Trial track

The port rail dispute among the city of North Charleston, a handful of state government agencies and other parties is on track or a fall trial date, if the case makes it that far.

The defendants -- the State Ports Authority, the S.C. Department of Commerce, the Division of Public Railways, the state itself, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- recently filed formal responses to the city's lawsuit. Each asked for the complaint to be dismissed. If the court rejects the dismissal pleas and no agreement is reached, a scheduling order in the case looks ahead to a possible trial starting in September.

North Charleston is contesting plans for a Commerce-led plan to bring commercial rail cars through the northern end of the former Navy base to serve a container-ship port being built at the south end of the property. North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey has said that would violate a signed no-rail pledge from the SPA and disrupt the urban redevelopment that's taken hold in the area.

At his re-election celebration in early November, Summey predicted a settlement could be reached within a few months.

All aboard? We'll see.

Plenty of room

Charleston County's hotel occupancy dropped 4.6 percent in November over the same month last year, but prices still rose.

The 4.6 percent dip in the number of filled rooms reflecting the absence of far-flung Boeing contractors who bunked down in the area while building the 787 factory. Another factor: fewer out-of-town visitors to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in North Charleston.

Hotels registered 59.6 percent occupancy in November, according to the Office of Tourism Analysis in the College of Charleston School of Business.

The average daily rate increased 3.2 percent to $115.48 while revenue per available room decreased 1.6 percent to $69.52 over November a year ago. It was only the second time in the past 21 months that the county saw a year-over-year decrease in revenue per available room.

Peninsular Charleston saw the highest lodging occupancy rate of 73.1 percent. West Ashley saw a rate of 59.7 percent, while North Charleston registered 54.3 percent occupancy.

Rooms were plntiful in East Cooper, where occupancy was down more than 9 percent to about 47 percent. That marked the first drop this year for Mount Pleasant and the adjacent markets.

The county has 15,148 hotel rooms with 270,872 room nights sold in November, according to the college. For comparison, October 348,861 room nights were sold.

In November 2010, the county sold 278,377 room nights. For the year, Charleston County's hotel occupancy rate is up 0.9 percent over 2010.

Meeting time

It's been a tough slog for many coastal lenders, but among the locals it's been particularly bumpy ride for Tidelands Bank.

Today, its owner, Tidelands Bancshares Inc., is scheduled to hold its first annual meeting of shareholders since April 2010. Since that last gathering, the top executive abruptly quit, followed by the resignation of a vice chairman over undisclosed disagreements with other directors over how CEO Chip Coffee's departure was handled. Also, the Mount Pleasant-based bank lost its Nasdaq stock listing. And this summer, its finance chief left to take a job outside the banking industry.

Meanwhile, losses remain high, and Tidelands still needs to raise capital. Shares closed at a meager 8 cents Friday.

To his credit, Thomas H. Lyles, acting president and CEO, didn't try to duck the seven-branch bank's performance issues in the proxy statement that went out to investors Nov. 8.

In fact, he was rather candid, pointing to the December 2010 consent order it agreed to enter into with its regulators. "From an investor perspective, we are very much aware that 2010 was an unsatisfactory year in terms of your investment in the company," Lyles wrote.

He went on to tell shareholders that the board, management and employees will "continue to work diligently to deal with our issues -- we are absolutely dedicated to addressing the issues we face as quickly as possible to return Tidelands Bank to a position of strength."

As for today's meeting, which starts at 10 a.m. at the bank's operations center on Lowcountry Boulevard, the business agenda is fairly routine.

Support system

Aiming to serve doctor groups throughout the Lowcountry, a national medical information technology support firm is setting up shop in Charleston.

The local branch of MD Tech Pro consists only of a sales manager and an engineer so far and has not yet leased office space. "It's actually my house as of right now," said Ryan Davis, sales manager.

But as Davis, a College of Charleston graduate who has lived here since 1989, recruits customers, "We'll hire more," he said. Med Tech Pro has another engineer who lives near Beaufort, Davis said, and the plan is to move the business out of his West Ashley home next month.

While other companies do network integration for other businesses, "our specialty is medical, and there's nobody else, at least that I'm aware of, that does that," Davis said.

MD Tech Pro, which helps practices with their electronic medical records systems as well as hardware management, was founded in Atlanta and has offices in Phoenix, Denver, Boston and Savannah.

"It only makes sense to come up here because Charleston's got a huge medical presence," Davis said. "It should be the Medical City, not the Holy City, right?"