Recently, the National Right to Work Foundation sounded the alarm about an under-the-radar attempt by Big Labor to make dramatic changes to labor regulations under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), enabling union organizers to force independent-minded railway and airline industry workers into unwanted union membership.
Big labor partisans from over 30 unions, led by AFL-CIO, pushed to change the current system requiring union bosses to obtain the consent of a true majority of workers in a given bargaining unit to accept their "exclusive representation." Instead, they want a new system that allows just a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to impose unionization on the whole group — thereby giving union officials the upper hand over workers who would otherwise decline union affiliation.
Unfortunately, the National Mediation Board (NMB), the government agency charged under the Railway Labor Act with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, voted 2-1 to discard 75 year old precedent and assist Big Labor in maximizing unionization of workers under the jurisdiction of the RLA. Right to Work litigators sprung into action filing formal comments defending independent-minded workers against the NMB’s draconian maneuver.
Now the Foundation has requested to testify at the NMB’s December 7, 2009 hearing on the proposed policy changes. Naturally, the Foundation — as America’s preeminent workers’ rights advocacy organization — is in a unique position to provide the needed perspective of individual workers opposed to forced unionism.
Given the opportunity, Foundation attorneys will point out that the proposed changes makes it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor’s well-funded, professional organizing machine — operating across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units — and 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.
