...FAA funding bill includes changes to Railway Labor Act
(From Page 1)
with labor that the vote should be on a
“clean” FAA bill.
Republicans refused, and let a tem-
porary FAA funding measure expire,
which shut down the agency last sum-
Local Motion
January 2012
A list of Oregon and Southwest Washington workplaces deciding
whether to be union-represented – as reported by the National
Labor Relations Board and the Oregon Employment Relations Board.
Voting in union elections
Date Workplace (Location) Union
1/10 Akzo Nobel Coatings (Salem) Teamsters Local 324
DECERT
1/13 MetroWest Ambulance (Hillsboro) Teamsters Local 223
Yes
No
13
14
76
124
Unionizing by majority sign-up
Date Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
1/18 City of Myrtle Creek maintenance (Myrtle Creek) IBEW Local 659
12
Requesting a union election
Workplace (Location) Union
Number of workers in unit
Oregon Child Development Coalition (Wilsonville) Laborers Local 320
DECERT
L EGEND
: workers will be union-represented
DECERT :
: : workers will be on their own
: A decertification election occurs when some union-represented workers declare
that the union no longer has majority support. A ‘yes’ vote is a vote for the union.
90
mer. Eventually, Republicans backed
down and authorized another round of
temporary funding, but not before fur-
loughing 4,000 FAA employees, idling
some 90,000 construction workers on
airport projects, and costing the gov-
ernment some $400 million in uncol-
lected airline ticket taxes.
As the latest round of temporary
funding was about to expire in late Jan-
uary, Congressional leaders from the
House and Senate announced a “com-
promise” to move the bill forward. FAA
would be funded for four years in ex-
change for the anti-union amendments
to the Railway Labor Act. House Re-
publicans agreed to drop the revision to
the majority-rule election process.
(However, that provision can be
changed any time by NMB members.)
The leaders of the 18 unions who
opposed the amendments said the
“compromise” was worse than what
was in place before; that it actually in-
creases the weight of those with no
opinion on unionization to the extent
that they can prevent a vote from hap-
pening at all.
“That’s a step back, not a compro-
mise,” noted Tom Buffenbarger, presi-
dent of the International Association of
Machinists.
“This should have been a jobs bill,
not the opportunity for an ideological
assault by the 1 percent,” said the
Communications Workers of America.
“Workers shouldn’t have to choose be-
tween jobs and their rights on the job.”
Despite their strong objections, the
Senate on Feb. 6 passed the reautho-
rization bill with the amendments at-
tached, 75-20. All but 17 Democrats
and three Republicans supported the
legislation. Democrat Jeff Merkley
was the lone senator from Oregon and
Washington to vote against it.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), called
the changes to the Railway Labor Act
“less detrimental” than the original lan-
guage, but he still voted against the bill.
“My vote is to stand up against the
notion that a federal agency (the Na-
tional Mediation Board) and the Amer-
ican workers it is charged to protect
should be punished for doing what is
right, what is fair, what is within their
jurisdiction, and to stand up against a
process that allows the few and the
powerful to hijack this body, to change
the rule of the game in their favor,” he
said.
“The only entity that (the old union
vote system) apparently doesn’t work
for is the management of a few power-
ful airlines,” Harkin said. “These pow-
erful companies don’t want workers to
have representation. They don’t want
to engage in collective bargaining with
their workers. They’re deeply con-
cerned, I guess, that at some point in
the future they just might have to put a
few additional dollars into middle class
workers’ pockets.”
A 248-169 House vote on Feb. 3
was mostly along party lines. Some of
the Democrats voting against it in-
cluded Earl Blumenauer and Peter De-
Fazio of Oregon, and Norm Dicks and
Jay Inslee of Washington.
President Obama is expected to sign
the bill, but had not at press time.
(Editor’s Note: Press Associates
Inc. and Washington State Labor
Council’s The Stand, contributed to
this report.)
RAILWAY LABOR ACT
AMMENDMENT IN HR 658
R ULES AND R EGULATIONS :
The Mediation Board shall have the au-
thority from time to time to make, amend,
and rescind, in the manner prescribed by
section 553 of title 5, United States Code,
and after opportunity for a public hearing,
such rules and regulations as may be neces-
sary to carry out the provisions of this Act.
The requirements shall not apply to any
rule or proposed rule to which the third sen-
tence of section 553(b) of title 5, United
States Code, applies.
R UNOFF E LECTION RULES :
The Railway Labor Act is amended by
inserting after the fourth sentence the fol-
lowing: ‘‘In any such election for which
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
there are 3 or more options (including the
option of not being represented by any labor
organization) on the ballot and no such op-
tion receives a majority of the valid votes
cast, the Mediation Board shall arrange for a
second election between the options receiv-
ing the largest and the second largest number
of votes.’’ [Prior to that, the runoff election
would include the top two union choices,
even if the “no union” option received more
votes than one of the union choices.]
S HOWING OF I NTEREST FOR
R EPRESENTATION E LECTIONS :
The Mediation Board, upon receipt of
an application requesting that an organiza-
tion or individual be certified as the repre-
sentative of any craft or class of employees,
shall not direct an election or use any other
method to determine who shall be the rep-
resentative of such craft or class unless the
Mediation Board determines that the appli-
cation is supported by a showing of interest
from not less than 50 percent of the em-
ployees in the craft or class.’’ [Previously,
the threshold was 35 percent.]
E VALUATION AND A UDIT OF NMB:
In order to promote economy, efficiency,
and effectiveness in the administration of
the programs, operations, and activities of
the Mediation Board, the Comptroller Gen-
eral of the United States shall evaluate and
audit the programs and expenditures of the
Mediation Board. Such an evaluation and
audit shall be conducted not less frequently
than every 2 years, but may be conducted
as determined necessary by the Comptroller
General or the appropriate congressional
committees.
In carrying out the evaluation and audit
required, the Comptroller General shall
evaluate and audit the programs, operations,
and activities of the Mediation Board, in-
cluding, at a minimum, information man-
agement and security, including privacy
protection of personally identifiable infor-
mation; resource management; workforce
development; procurement and contracting
planning, practices, and policies; the extent
to which the Mediation Board follows lead-
ing practices in selected management areas;
and the processes the Mediation Board fol-
lows to address challenges in initial investi-
gations of applications requesting that an or-
ganization or individual be certified as the
representative of any craft or class of em-
ployees; ) determining and certifying repre-
sentatives of employees; and ensuring that
the process occurs without interference, in-
fluence, or coercion.
Not later than 180 days after the date of
enactment of this section, the Comptroller
General shall review the processes applied
by the Mediation Board to certify or decer-
tify representation of employees by a labor
organization and make recommendations to
the Board and appropriate congressional
committees regarding actions that may be
taken by the Board or Congress to ensure
that the processes are fair and reasonable for
all parties. Such review shall be conducted
separately from any evaluation and audit un-
der subsection and shall include, at a mini-
mum:an evaluation of the existing processes
and changes to such processes that have oc-
curred since the establishment of the Medi-
ation Board and whether those changes are
consistent with congressional intent; and a
description of the extent to which such
processes are consistent with similar
processes applied to other Federal or State
agencies with jurisdiction over labor rela-
tions, and an evaluation of any justifications
for any discrepancies between the processes
of the Mediation Board and such similar
Federal or State processes.
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