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On Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on the FAA Reauthorization Act, legislation that will overturn last year’s National Mediation Board’s ruling that fundamentally changed the way the airline and railroad industry unionizes.

Congress Can Protect Workers From Obama’s National Mediation Board

The FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011, which the U.S. House of Representatives will soon be taking up, has put Big Labor on high alert. The legislation seeks to reverse a decision made by the National Mediation Board (NMB) that gives labor bosses the ability to forcibly unionize workers in the airline and railroad industries.

Amidst debate on the bill, union heads are putting pressure on elected officials to defend the NMB decision, which overturned nearly a century of precedent that required a simple majority of workers to vote for unionization in order for an airline or railroad company to be organized. The NMB drastically changed this rule. The new regulation requires only the majority of employees who participate in the vote to support unionization in order for Big Labor to come sweeping in, mandating dues and setting wages and benefits.

This would mean that if 2,000 employees worked at an airline or railroad company, and only 500 of them voted, it would only take the support of 251 employees in a business of 2,000 for the entire business to become unionized.

Pushing Back Against A Decree

The National Mediation Board — which has decided RLA disputes since 1934 — interpreted the law this way for its first 75 years. But then, Obama took office and changed the composition of the board to 2–1 Democrat. In 2010, with no deliberation by Congress whatsoever — but with urging from the unions — the NMB simply changed course, declaring that from now on, a majority of voting employees is all that’s needed to unionize a work group. The board made several smaller changes as well, all of which favored the unions.

The unions immediately began exploiting this rule change. In the case of the Delta-Northwest merger, the unions already had filed election applications before the rule change, but withdrew them and then re-filed so that the elections could take place under the new rules.

Congress needs to reassert itself in the face of the NMB’s brazen sop to the unions, and the law now under consideration in the House — Title IX of the FAA Reauthorization Bill — would do just that, overriding the policy change. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee shot down an amendment that would have removed the provision by a 30–29 margin (three Republicans sided with the unions), and a similar amendment will no doubt be proposed when the bill goes before the entire House this week.

Title IX will force the NMB to interpret the RLA to mean what it says — what it has been held to have said for 75 years — and insist that Congress be the entity to make major changes to labor law. It will also make it more difficult for unions to grab hold of airline employees, in many against the will of a great number of those workers. (Under collective bargaining, when a majority of workers vote to unionize, the union gets to represent all employees.)

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Urge Congress to support passage of the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011!

by WFI Staff

When you hear the term “labor peace,” you might think of some wonderful or harmonious state of existence in which Big Labor bosses and the employers they target can get along.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

Labor peace is, in reality, an extension of union boss harassment tactics that continue to unfairly push many businesses over the brink.  It’s really a very lopsided peace – for union chiefs and their soldiers. A new study released by the Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Initiative (also known as “WFI”), goes into excruciating detail to unveil a terrorizing bevy of state and local laws which bully employers, many of them small outfits, into waiving their federal labor law rights.  It’s an unseemly pattern of ordinances giving union heads more of what they don’t need: power. But, union bosses don’t care so long as they get yet another loophole to push their agenda.

Explains WFI in a statement:

“Labor peace” ordinances can force employers to grant concessions like recognizing a union based on signed cards rather than a secret ballot election, refraining from providing workers with information on unionization, and allowing outside union organizers into the workplace. These ordinances can cover hotels, restaurants, casinos, other hospitality facilities, and airports, although any facility that receives public funding or some other assistance from a non-federal government entity is a potential target. 

Essentially, it’s a ruse for union boss power.  The wolf in sheep’s clothing is that it’s law, giving the public the impression that it’s fair when it’s not.  As you can imagine, you’ll see a lot of these shady ordinances in union boss-friendly political territory.  Big urban areas like New York, North Jersey, Pittsburgh and San Francisco are famous for these barely legal labor laws. Sadly, the damage will be already done to the economy before anyone knows what hit us.

This entry was posted in Big Labor Bailout, Big Labor Bosses, Politics, Unions and tagged Big Labor, Employee Rights, federal labor laws, labor movement, labor peace, state laws, Union Bosses, Unions. Bookmark the permalink.