Month: May 2011

Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA): Are Workers Choosing Unions, or Are Unions Choosing Them?

What if we lived in a country where private employees were forced to unionize, even if most hadn’t agreed to? Spoiler alert: We do — thanks to the recent decision of an unelected three-person panel.

This new reality came about in 2010, when a voting rule enacted through the Railway Labor Act was stripped away by the National Mediation Board (NMB). This resulted in the potential for groups of railroad and airline workers to be unionized without the majority of them being in favor of it. Now, only a majority of those who choose to vote, as opposed to a majority of the total, are needed to unionize. To allow the fate of the majority of workers to be decided by only a small handful is not only undemocratic — it fails to protect private-industry workers at a time when they need it the most.

Not only does this new rule disregard a fair and democratic precedent that’s been maintained in the industry for 75 years, it does so in the face of an American public fed up with regulatory agencies’ infringing upon private industry. In a time when our country is clearly calling for less intrusion on free enterprise in order to stimulate our weak economy and create more jobs, why should union bosses be allowed to unfairly take control of more industries for their own political incentives?

What’s more appalling is the argument that reinstating the 75-year-old democratic rule somehow hinders union organization. To the contrary, union representation has been the result in more than two-thirds of the 1,850 elections reported since 1935. An average of 72 percent of employees in these industries are represented by unions.

Representative Steven LaTourette (R-OH): Sponsoring Amendment To Bailout Big Labor

Steven LaTourette, a Republican Representative from Ohio, is sponsoring an amendment that puts him squarely on the opposite side of most of his GOP colleagues in the pitched battle over the labor movement raging across the country.

A spokeswoman for LaTourette confirmed to Fox News that the amendment to the Federal Administration reauthorization bill would protect a rule finalized by the National Mediation Board last year making it easier to organize unions at airline and railway companies.

Tell you Member of Congress to stand up to Big Labor by taking action here.

REUTERS: Obama Threatens Veto Of FAA Bill Over Labor Provision

President Barack Obama would veto sweeping aviation legislation if Republicans in Congress succeed in gutting a rule favorable to airline and railroad union organizing, the White House said on Wednesday.

“The administration is committed to help working Americans exercise their right to organize under a fair and free process,” the White House said in a statement on the multi-billion-dollar bill that lays out long term U.S. aviation priorities.

We’re down to the wire.  Congress votes today on this important legislation that would restore democracy to the workplace.  The FAA Reauthorization bill would repeal undemocratic and un-American NMB rules that allow a minority of workers to unionize the majority.  Tell your U.S. Representative to vote for the FAA Reauthorization bill and against the Costello/LaTourette amendment.  Take a stand for American workers.  Take action NOW.