For decades, Delta Air Lines flight attendants have repeatedly rebuked Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) union organizers' efforts to take monopoly bargaining control over their workplaces.

Despite a recent intense union organizing campaign, AFA union officials have lost yet another union organizing election, but true to form, AFA union bosses refuse to leave this independent-minded group of employees alone due to their blind lust for more forced union dues dollars.

So yesterday, more than thirty flight attendants from across the country met outside the AFA union headquarters on their day off to send them a message: "Leave us alone!"

From one participating flight attendant:

Flight attendants [from] more than seven bases spent three hours in the wind and bitter cold. The bundled-up group marched in front of the Communications Workers of America building, the posh home of AFA... Each flight attendant carried homemade signs with messages, ranging from “Respect Our Choice,” to “No Means No” and “No Union, No Dues, No Problem.”

Hats (and beanies) off to this courageous group of independent-minded employees as they take a stand for their workplace rights.

Read more about how fed-up Delta flight attendants are taking the fight to AFA union bosses in the July/August 2010 edition (pdf) of National Right to Work's newsletter, Foundation Action.

Union bosses want to their unions to be akin to roach motels:  Easy to check in, but impossible to check out.

On Monday, National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Raymond LaJeunesse presented the perspective of independent-minded workers at the National Mediation Board's (NMB) hearing on proposed changes to labor regulations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) that would enable union organizers to corral tens of thousands of non-union railway and airline industry workers into union membership.

Unfortunately, the NMB -- the government agency charged under the RLA with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries -- voted 2-1 to consider dramatic changes concocted by the bosses of the AFL-CIO union and 30 other unions. The changes would dictate a new system in which just a majority of workers affirmatively voting in a union organizing election to impose unionization on the whole collective bargaining unit.  The current system requires union organizers to obtain the consent of a true majority of workers in a given bargaining unit to accept their "exclusive representation."

The Foundation's vice president and legal director argued before the NMB that the proposed changes further stack the deck against independent-minded workers who must compete against Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine -- operating across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units -- to secure their right to be free from union boss "representation." The proposed scheme imposes a greater burden on employees who wish to refrain from union membership by forcing them to either take affirmative action to protect rights that should already be secure -- or otherwise allow far less than a majority of their colleagues take away their independence.

Furthermore, Foundation attorneys also argued that the NMB needs establish a formal process under the RLA for workers wanting to remove a union as their monopoly bargaining agent as required under Foundation-won precedent in U.S. federal court.

To read the Foundation's statement, click here.

UPDATE: On December 29, Foundation attorneys filed formal comments to the NMB. In them, the Foundation argued key four points:

• The NMB lacks the authority to make the proposed changes, only Congress does.
• The NMB's application of the definition of what makes a monopoly bargaining unit makes it virtually impossible for independent-minded employees combat professional union organizers.
• Workers who have no interest in union membership are forced to take action to oppose the union bosses' "representation."
• It is extremely difficult for employees to remove a union, especially so because the NMB has not established a procedure to allow workers to terminate a union hierarchy's monopoly bargaining privileges.

For these reasons, Foundation attorneys argue that the NMB should reject the proposed changes just as they did as recently as 2008.  To read the formal comments, click here.

Last week we reported on an attempt by National Media Board (NMB) bureaucrats to reposition the agency as a promoter of coercive "card check" union organizing. The NMB is a federal bureaucracy whose purpose is supposedly to, among other things, “to promote… the effectuation of employee rights of self-organization where a representation dispute exists…” within the railroad and airline industries.

Today we learn via the Daily Labor Report that the NMB's proposal has been yanked, at least for now. The move is a victory for the National Right to Work Foundation, which opposed the changes:

National Right to Work Staff Attorney Glenn M. Taubman submitted opposing comments... regarding the sneaky changes proposed by the National Mediation Board. As Taubman points out, not interfering with “card check” practices is essentially providing a rubber stamp for more union boss interference, influence and coercion.

Taubman makes a forceful argument using historical fact and case law that having rules that allow “card check” undermine employee free choice. Taubman concludes that “all MNB rules, regulations and policies should mandate the secret-ballot election process and entirely forbid ‘card checks.’”

The full document can be downloaded here.

In recent weeks, the National Mediation Board, a federal bureaucracy whose purpose is to, among other things, “to promote… the effectuation of employee rights of self-organization where a representation dispute exists…” within the railroad and airline industries, has proposed revisions to its Representational Manual that would open the floodgates to the use of coercive "card check."

While the NMB does “determine and certify collective bargaining representatives of employees” it also says that it functions to “ensure that the process occurs without interference, influence or coercion.” Despite this fact, the proposed NMB revisions are explicitly stated to not be “intended to interfere with or preclude either certification by card check…or voluntary recognition.” In other words, while its mission is to stop coercion, the NMB wants to modify its rules to encourage the coercive card check process for unionization.

National Right to Work Staff Attorney Glenn M. Taubman submitted opposing comments for the National Right to Work Committee and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation regarding the sneaky changes proposed by the National Mediation Board. As Taubman points out, not interfering with “card check” practices is essentially providing a rubber stamp for more union boss interference, influence and coercion.

Taubman makes a forceful argument using historical fact and case law that having rules that allow “card check” undermine employee free choice. Taubman concludes that “all MNB rules, regulations and policies should mandate the secret-ballot election process and entirely forbid ‘card checks.’”

The full document can be downloaded here.