A very good catch this week by Katie Gage at Town Hall, regarding an opportunity to partially reverse some of the pro-union bias in Washington. This week, when the House marks up the FAA Reauthorization legislation they will address an important provision. It involves repealing a labor-backed National Mediation Board (NMB) rule defining the circumstances under which a collective bargaining unit can be established.
Just over a year ago, and without a tremendous amount of attention from the national media, a little-known agency changed nearly a century of labor policy in favor of union bosses and to the detriment of workers in the airline and railway industries. The three-member agency known as the National Mediation Board (NMB) reversed a 75 year old precedent whereby a majority of a workforce was required to determine whether a collective bargaining unit had been formed. Under the new rule enforced by this regulatory agency, only a majority of those voting are needed to form a collective bargaining unit, meaning a small number of workers can decide every employee’s fate.
It may not look like much in terms of earth shaking legislation, but the difference was important. For most of the last century, if workers wanted to establish a union at their place of work, they needed a majority of the employees to vote in favor of the action. Of course, how many people are actually able and willing to show up to vote can depend on a variety of factors and is readily subject to high-jinks. After the 2009 ruling by the NMB, if you had a shop with 100 workers but could set it up so that only half of them showed up for the vote, only 26 votes would be required to bind all 100 employees into the collective bargaining unit.
So who are the members of this infrequently noted, three person board? Both the chairman, Harry Hoglander, and the next senior member, Linda Puchala, are former top level executives from unions. (Hoglander for the Air Line Pilots Association and Puchala from the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, and the Michigan State Employees Association, AFSCME, AFL-CIO.)
The only member not coming from such a pedigree is 2006 Bush appointee Elizabeth Dougherty, who worked as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy at the White House and Chief Counsel for the United States Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training. Those positions at least imply some experience in serving everyone’s interests, not just those of the unions.
From the Workforce Fairness Institute:
“This dangerous precedent assumes anyone not voting supports forming a union, whether that is the case or not. Members of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will have to pick a side: the side of hard working men and women around the country in the airline and railroad industries or the side of Big Labor bosses in Washington, D.C. looking for another bailout.”
The upcoming vote may be an early test to see just how well Washington has learned the lessons of the 2010 elections. Keep an eye on who supports the repeal of this rule and who goes to the mat for the unions. I’ll spare you any predictions for now.
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