At a time when the nation’s attention is on creating jobs, growing the economy and helping expand exports of products made in the United States, it was shocking to read recently that the federal government is trying to shut down a new $1 billion assembly plant built by Boeing in South Carolina.

In recent months, President Barack Obama has been trying to demonstrate that he is pro-business and wants to work with the business community to help create jobs and energize the economy. That makes it all the harder to understand how the National Labor Relations Board could proceed with a complaint filed by District Lodge 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers against Boeing. The complaint was filed in March 2010, and in April of this year NLRB upheld the complaint.

Boeing, for its part, built the plant to expand production capabilities. With 835 orders for the company’s new 787 Dreamliner airline, Boeing obviously needed to expand production.

The union claims the North Carolina plant was being built to intimidate union workers at the company’s main plant north of Seattle. The facts tell another story, since most of the new planes will still be built in Washington state, and Boeing has added workers at its production facilities there.

It should also be noted that strikes by workers in Washington state have shut down production every three or four years. Boeing says one eight-week work stoppage in 2008 cost the company $2 billion and raised concerns among its airline customers for obvious reasons: if new passenger jets that had been ordered would now not be delivered.

When considering how and where to expand production, the company naturally thought about the impact of those strikes. As one of 22 “right-to- work” states, South Carolina was determined to be business friendly. That’s because workers there cannot be compelled to join a union, even if the majority of workers in a company have voted to unionize.

Presumably this was an attraction to Boeing, as it has been to major automobile manufacturers that have built plants in right-to-work states. If Boeing was hit with a strike by workers in Washington state, it could continue producing airplanes, albeit at a significantly lower rate. This production insurance would be good for the company in terms of boosting production, and it would also reassure nervous customers that have had to wait out strikes in the past to receive the planes they ordered.

It all makes sense, and no jobs were lost or cut in the process. Yet, the NLRB agreed to hear the complaint, sending the message that the federal government under Obama might tell American companies where they can or cannot produce their products. Some might suggest that such a message would tell American companies to not bother locating in the United States, especially in a right-to-work state, and go directly to Asia or South America, where business is welcome and jobs are appreciated.

It should be noted that the NLRB is an independent body, but the message sent by this case is probably sending shock waves through the business community. And that is not what the Obama administration should be wanting when it is trying to double exports in five years, revive a struggling economy and drive the unemployment rate down from the current 9 percent level.

Obama should have been out front immediately after the NLRB action to hear the complaint, explaining that he strongly opposes the government taking on business in this absurd way — and in potentially driving away business.

Already, Republicans, including South Carolina’s governor and two senators, are blasting the Obama administration over the case, which will proceed on June 14 when both sides will plead their case before a Seattle judge.

The new Boeing plant will employ thousands of workers, if it is allowed to open by the federal government as planned in the next month.

The controversy in Wisconsin produced charges that Republicans were trying to break the unions. The truth appears to be that in some cases, both in the private and public sectors, there is a need to put the brakes on union power where things have just gone too far.