Principled U.S. House Leadership Can Thwart Big Labor Power Grab

(Source: September 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

Over the next few weeks, the U.S. House will have the opportunity to turn back a Big Labor-inspired bureaucratic rewrite of the procedures through which union officials acquire monopoly-bargaining privileges under the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

If self-avowedly pro-Right to Work House leaders and rank-and-file members blow this opportunity, another one won’t come for a long time.

In June 2010, President Obama’s two appointees on the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB) instituted an RLA rule change making it far easier for airline and railroad union chiefs to acquire monopoly power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules.

NMB members Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, the two Obama-selected bureaucrats favoring the rule change, are both ex-union bosses. They overturned decades-old procedures previously supported by GOP and Democratic presidential administrations alike.

Union Monopoly Bargaining Hurts Employees and Businesses

Federally-imposed “exclusive” (monopoly) union bargaining undermines efficiency and productivity by forcing employers to reward equally their most productive and least productive employees.

The damage is compounded when the employees already hurt by being forced to accept a union bargaining agent opposed to their interests are then forced to pay dues or fees to the unwanted union.

Fortunately, Right to Work laws in 22 states, where 39% of the private-sector workforce is employed, prohibit the collection of forced dues from the vast majority of employees wherever they are in effect.

However, in 1951, when Congress amended the RLA to impose for the first time forced union dues and fees on airline and railroad employees, Big Labor U.S. senators and representatives denied states the option to protect employees’ Right to Work.

Ever since, union bosses have had the government-granted power to get airline and railroad employees fired for refusal to bankroll a union in all 50 states, including Right to Work states.

Partly in order to compensate for the unique privileges airline/railroad union officials enjoy, even relative to other union officials, federal labor policy has long set a somewhat higher bar for RLA-covered union bosses to acquire forced-union-dues powers.

Until last year, airline and railroad union kingpins needed the backing of the majority of all of a firm’s employees in a “craft or class,” not merely the majority of those who vote, to be installed as employees’ monopoly-bargaining agent.

The Hoglander-Puchala bureaucratic rewrite of longstanding RLA procedures enables union chiefs to get monopoly power as long as a majority of the employees who vote back them.

House Showdown With Big Labor-Controlled White House And Senate Now Underway

In March, International Association of Machinists (IAM/AFL-CIO) union bosses took advantage of this rule to grab monopoly control over more than 1900 AirTran employees, even though 66% had not voted for unionization.

Fortunately, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2011 (H.R.658), adopted by the House the following month, would overturn the Hoglander-Puchala scheme and restore the higher bar for union monopoly bargaining.

Before final passage of H.R.658, intense lobbying by National Right to Work Committee members persuaded a 220-206 House majority to defeat an amendment backed by Big Labor Democrats and Big Labor-appeasing Republicans endorsing Mr. Hoglander and Ms. Puchala’s power grab.

This House vote set the stage for a now unfolding House showdown with the Obama Administration and union-label Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) Senate over RLA union monopoly bargaining.

Right to Work Vice President Urges Members to Keep Contacting Speaker Boehner

“President Obama and Majority Leader Reid claim they won’t go along with any FAA reauthorization that prohibits the NMB from greasing the skids for union monopoly bargaining over transportation employees,” noted Committee Vice President Mary King.

“But if the House over the next month or two simply refuses to authorize FAA funding for Fiscal 2012, which begins October 1, and beyond, without an amendment restoring the RLA rules that prevailed until 2010, then it’s very likely the President and Mr. Reid will have to change their tune.

“Big Labor Democrats know the American public doesn’t want to see the FAA shut down for an extended period, as it already was briefly this summer, just so airline and railroad union bosses can grab even more monopoly power than they already have.

“I urge Committee members to keep contacting House Speaker John Boehner [R-Ohio] at 202-225-0600 to make sure he knows that, too.”

After trying to eliminate the secret ballot election in the workplace, Big Labor is now demanding a secret ballot election. From the Heritage Foundation:

Secret ballots protect voters from intimidation. As long as a vote remains private, no one can retaliate against individuals for voting the “wrong” way. The leadership of the union movement wants to replace secret ballot union elections with “card-check”—a system where workers would unionize by signing union cards in the presence of union organizers.

Publicly, union leaders insist that union organizers would never intimidate workers if they knew how they voted. But it turns out union bosses know full well that without secret ballots, union organizers would intimidate workers.

Two unions, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and the Association of Flight Attendants–Communications Workers of America (AFA–CWA) are vying to represent workers at the newly merged United–Continental airlines.

The election will take place via secret ballot, which does not suit the AFA–CWA. It is pressuring employees to call in and register their votes with the union. IAM has cried foul. In a letter to AFA–CWA the IAM objected that:

How a Flight Attendant votes is a personal choice, and directing someone to reveal how they voted is a flagrant form of intimidation. Flight Attendants have already begun to register such complaints to the NMB…Flight Attendants are guaranteed by law that their votes are confidential. They should only reveal how or if they voted if they freely choose to do so…

If you value a Flight Attendant’s right to make a choice free from intimidation, then you should tell Flight Attendants that they do not have to “register” their votes with AFA-CWA or with the IAM, for that matter.

Quite so. The AFA–CFA has no right to know whether or how United–Continental’s employees voted. IAM knows that with that knowledge, its rival would pressure workers not to support it. Yet IAM enthusiastically endorses card-check. Union bosses understand that getting rid of secret ballots would expose workers to union intimidation—and they object only when that intimidation does not benefit them.

And with labor bosses struggling to secure new members and private-sector union membership at an anemic 6.9 percent, Big Labor has been keenly searching for new avenues to increase its revenue and power. New members mean more union dues, and bosses are hungrier for those dues now than ever before as they struggle with their own budget issues, including massive pension liabilities that they currently cannot finance.

After pouring millions of dollars of forced union dues into campaigns to elect the current administration and countless representatives and senators that their membership may not even support, Big Labor bosses now find themselves strapped for the cash they need to fund their political activities and promised worker benefits. As a result, they will do and say anything to gain new members, even if that means pressuring relatively unknown government agencies like the NMB to do their bidding.

As workers around the country express their discontent with Big Labor’s agenda, instead of listening, big union bosses are using regulations to force airline and railroad employees into unions. And all of this is executed by a purported “independent” government agency funded by your tax dollars.

The NMB’s decision to overturn a rule that has been in place since Franklin Roosevelt was president for the sole benefit of Big Labor bosses and their political allies is abhorrent. Congress has the opportunity with the FAA reauthorization bill to restore a rule that protects the rights of workers and keeps a runaway regulatory arm of the Obama administration in check.

Right to Work Fights For Independent Transportation Employees

Over the past three-quarters of a century, federal labor policy has done enormous damage to employees and businesses by authorizing and promoting monopolistic unionism.

Federally-imposed “exclusive” union bargaining undermines efficiency and productivity by forcing employers to reward equally their most productive and least productive employees.

The damage is compounded when the employees already hurt by being forced to accept a union bargaining agent opposed to their interests are forced as well to pay dues or fees to the unwanted union.

Fortunately, Right to Work laws in 22 states, where nearly 40% of the private-sector work force is employed, prohibit the collection of forced dues from the vast majority of employees. (Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress have recognized states’ freedom to protect employees’ Right to Work.)

However, in 1951, when Congress first foisted forced union dues and fees on employees covered by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), Big Labor senators and representatives opted to deny states the option to protect employees’ Right to Work.

Ever since, Big Labor has had the government-granted power to get airline and railroad employees fired for refusal to bankroll a union in all 50 states, including Right to Work states.

Partly in order to compensate for the unique privileges airline/railroad union bosses enjoy, even relative to other union bosses, federal labor policy has long set a somewhat higher bar for RLA-covered union officials to acquire monopoly-bargaining and forced-dues powers.

New Rule Intensifies Federal Policy’s Pro-Big Labor Monopoly Bias

Until this spring, unlike most private-sector union officials, airline and railroad union bosses have needed the backing of the majority of all of a firm’s employees in a “craft or class,” not merely the majority of those who vote, to be installed as employees’ monopoly-bargaining agent.

This somewhat higher bar hasn’t been a huge problem for airline and railroad union organizers. According to labor economists Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson, in 2009, 42% of “air transportation” employees and 69% of “rail transportation” employees were under union monopoly bargaining, compared to just 8% of all private-sector employees.

Nevertheless, Big Labor’s motto is, “The more monopoly bargaining, the better.” And union strategists know President Barack Obama, who reaffirmed in April that he is a “pro-[forced] union guy” and makes “no apologies for it,” shares that sentiment.

That’s why, last fall, it wasn’t hard at all for union bosses to persuade the two Barack Obama appointees who now constitute a majority of the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB) to rewrite the RLA rules.

As a consequence of the change, starting this month, airline and railroad union officials will need the backing only of a majority of employees who vote to get monopoly-bargaining power.

Because, in practice, only a minority of all potential voters participate in many elections over unionization, this rule will often allow a pro-union minority of workers to foist a union on the majority of their fellow employees who prefer not to have a union.

Right to Work Supporters Already Fighting Back

National Right to Work Committee Vice President Doug Stafford vowed to do everything possible to reverse Obama bureaucrats’ RLA rule change.

On one front, Committee legislative leaders are working with pro-Right to Work Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) on a resolution that could overturn the unwarranted change legislatively.

On a second front, attorneys for the Committee’s sister organization, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, are representing five independent Delta employees in a bid to get the rule overturned in court.

The Foundation motion charges, in part, that Obama NMB appointees Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala should not have voted on the rule change, because, as former airline union officials, they both had a conflict of interest.

(Source: January 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Much that is written about American labor unions is misleading because it assumes they operate like other private, nonprofit organizations.

In key respects, this assumption is false. For example, affiliation with private organizations is, the vast majority of the time, a purely personal decision. But under federal labor law, union affiliation is not a personal decision.

Under American traditions of limited government, your decision to contribute your household’s money to a charity, a political campaign, or a single-issue lobbying organization is made individually, or together with your spouse or solicitor.

Public Overwhelmingly Opposes Union Monopoly Bargaining

Your neighbors, fellow employees, or business associates may offer advice, but do not get a chance to vote on which private groups you support or don’t support.

But U.S. labor laws empower pro-union employees who constitute a majority within a government-delineated “bargaining unit” to force other employees who don’t want a union to accept a particular union as their “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agent in their dealings with their employer.

Furthermore, once a monopoly-bargaining agent is in place, under federal law it and the employer are legally authorized to agree to fire employees who refuse to pay dues or fees to the union.

Apologists for current labor laws typically cite “majority rule” as the rationale for forcing unwanted union monopoly bargaining and forced dues or fees on employees who don’t wish to join a union.

But under our constitutional system, majority rule normally controls only the affairs of government or the internal affairs of a private association. The invocation of majority rule to force unwilling persons into membership in or financial support for a private organization is not acceptable.

For example, the decision by the majority of businesses in a community to join and pay dues to the Chamber of Commerce doesn’t give them the legal power, under any statute, to force the remaining businesses to join or pay dues.

Furthermore, opinion polls have shown for many years that the general public overwhelmingly opposes union monopoly bargaining.

Airline, Railroad Union Bosses Push For Expansion of Monopoly-Bargaining System

A recent nationwide survey conducted by veteran pollster Del Ali and his firm Research 2000 found that 81% of Americans who regularly vote in statewide elections believe that employees in unionized businesses who do not want to be union-represented should retain the right to bargain for themselves.

While the American people are clearly against monopoly bargaining, union officials and their apologists are for it and want far more of it.

That’s why, last fall, union bosses persuaded the two Barack Obama appointees who now constitute a majority of the three-member National Mediation Board (NMB) to rewrite the rules for union organizing under the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

Under an NMB rule change published last November 3, airline and railroad union dons will need the backing only of a majority of employees who vote, not a majority of all employees within the bargaining unit, to get monopoly-bargaining power.

Once it becomes final, this rule will often allow a pro-union minority of workers to foist a union on the majority of their fellow employees who prefer not to have a union.

“Union lobbyists could try to get the same rewrite of RLA organizing rules adopted legislatively, but they know they couldn’t persuade even today’s Big Labor-dominated Congress to do so,” noted National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

“Congress fears the political consequences of creating an even faster track to union monopoly bargaining — specifically a backlash from employees, businesses and consumers. By now paving that faster track bureaucratically, the Obama Administration is being grossly irresponsible.”

(Source: February 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

President Obama, Big Labor U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and union-label House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are all eager to help government union bosses grab monopoly-bargaining privileges over more than 45,000 airport screeners employed at the Transport Security Administration.

At the same time, however, neither the President nor the two congressional leaders seem to want to accept accountability for corralling TSA employees into a union. Mr. Obama, Mr. Reid, and Ms. Pelosi know that foisting a union monopoly on a federal agency that is critical for national security would be very unpopular.

That’s why, until very recently, they planned to let Erroll Southers do their dirty work.

Last September, the President named Mr. Southers, a former FBI agent, as his choice to head the TSA.

Had the Senate confirmed him as assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for the TSA, Mr. Southers would have had the discretion to rescind administratively the prohibition on union monopoly bargaining over federal airport screeners imposed in 2003.

Unionization Would ‘Make It Harder’ For TSA to ‘Meet Changing Terrorist Threats’

And, even though Mr. Southers refused to say publicly whether or not he intended to hand government union bosses monopoly power to bargain over airport screeners’ working conditions once the Senate had confirmed him, Big Labor was obviously confident he would do just that.

On September 10, 2009, even before the President had officially nominated Mr. Southers, top bosses of the American Federation of Government Employees union (AFGE/AFL-CIO), who expect to be the principal beneficiaries of TSA monopoly bargaining, issued a press release applauding the choice.

The release quoted AFGE union President John Gage: “The question of [monopoly] bargaining . . . at TSA is not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when.’ We are confident that the appointment of Mr. Southers as administrator will help put that matter to bed.”

By late November, the AFGE hierarchy appeared to be on the verge of having its way. Two Senate committees had already rubber-stamped the nomination in lopsided votes.

But the National Right to Work Committee and its 2.5 million members weren’t ready to let AFGE union kingpins coercively collectivize TSA airport screeners without a fight.

Working closely with key pro-Right to Work senators, the Committee moved late last fall to block the confirmation of Erroll Southers, and thus prevent union bosses from obtaining monopoly power to negotiate over how airport screeners do their jobs.

Handing Big Labor this power would, as the respected Wall Street Journal editorial page has pointed out, “make it harder for the executive branch to hire, fire, train and reassign workers to best meet changing terrorist threats.”

Pro-Right to Work South Carolina Senator Placed ‘Hold’ on Nomination

On November 29, pro-Right to Work Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) placed a “hold” on the Southers nomination, indicating his intent to prevent the nomination from moving forward until Mr. Southers had stated publicly and plainly whether or not he intended to unionize the TSA, and explained the reasons for his stance.

Subsequently, several other pro-Right to Work senators, including Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), declared that they also had “serious concerns” about Mr. Southers.

Nevertheless, Senate Majority Leader Reid vowed he would push aside all objections and ram through the nomination, without any additional debate, shortly after the Senate reconvened on January 19.

However, on January 20, beset by questions not just about whether he would impose union monopoly bargaining at the TSA, but also about his improper handling of confidential FBI files while employed there and his false testimony regarding the latter matter, Mr. Southers pulled out his nomination.

Battle Over TSA Employees’ Right to Work Goes On

“Thanks largely to the diligence of Right to Work legislative staff and the principled stance of Sen. DeMint, the AFGE union bosses’ scheme to seize monopoly-bargaining power over federal airport baggage screeners has been temporarily derailed,” said Committee President Mark Mix.

“Unfortunately, it is almost inevitable that President Obama’s next nominee to head the TSA, whoever that is, will wear a union label.”

“Once again, it will be up to Right to Work allies in the Senate to make sure the nominee provides clear answers on the monopoly-bargaining question before he or she is confirmed.”

From Wall Street Journal:

The board plans to stack the deck for organized labor in union elections. Under a proposed rule, unions would no longer have to get the approval of a majority of airline workers to achieve certification. Not even close. Instead, a union could win just by getting a majority of the employees who vote. Thus, if only 1,000 of 10,000 flight attendants vote in a union election, and 501 vote for certification, the other 9,499 become unionized.

This radical break with precedent is the handiwork of President Obama’s appointees to the three-member board: Harry Hoglander, once president of a pilots union, and Linda Puchala, former president of the Association of Flight Attendants.

The board got a request to adopt the jerry-rigged voting standard from the AFL-CIO in September. Without a hearing or invitation for preliminary views, the Obama duo drafted the AFL-CIO demand and published it in the Federal Register. It’s now subject to a 60-day comment period, after which Ms. Puchala and Mr. Hoglander will no doubt vote to inflict it on all the nation’s airline and rail carriers.

Since 1934, every National Mediation Board—even those with Democratic majorities—has upheld the current rule on grounds that companies governed by the Railway Labor Act are vital to the U.S. economy. The existing rules were designed to reduce strikes by ensuring that a majority of airline and rail employees support union representation. In their rule change, Mr. Hoglander and Ms. Puchala brush aside the many historical and legal barriers to their change, arguing that under “broad statutory authority” they can do what they want.

And that’s kind compared to their treatment of the board’s Bush-appointed Chairman Liz Dougherty. According to a letter Ms. Dougherty sent Congress, the two Democrats never sought her input or participation in crafting the proposal. Instead, they gave her a “final” version of the rule, said they were sending it in two hours and forbade her from publishing a dissent. They relented later, but only if she removed some of her criticism.

Ms. Dougherty noted such “arbitrary” and “exclusionary” behavior (we’d call it thuggish) has never been the norm at the agency. Her Democratic colleagues’ frantic rush to change a 75-year-old rule “gives the impression that the Board has prejudged this issue,” and is trying to “influence the outcome of several very large and important representation cases currently pending.”

Indeed. The AFL-CIO letter was inspired by Delta’s acquisition of Northwest. Northwest was largely unionized but Delta wasn’t. The unions are now struggling to win the required new elections, and they want the Mediation Board to manipulate the rules in their favor. It is growing clear that Ms. Puchala and Mr. Hoglander are in on the game. So too, presumably, are the folks who appointed them.

In a backdoor attempt to force unionization on workers, the National Mediation Board (NMB), which oversees labor relations in the airline and railroad industries, is proposing a change to rules for aviation and railway workplace organizing.  The NMB’s proposal would change the voting process from majority rule, which has been in place for 75 years, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, to minority rule. This would allow the will of a small group of employees to dictate the fate of the entire workforce.

Instead of requiring a majority of employees to vote for union representation, a majority of only those voting in the election would be required. This assumes that anyone not casting a ballot is, in fact, in favor of abdicating their own right to negotiate with their employer and allowing a union to represent them.

Who is asking for this rule change? Not a majority of railway and airline workers, or their employers. The request comes from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), in a self-serving attempt to make it easier to unionize so they can collect massive union dues at the expense of our freedoms.

The AFL-CIO has demanded that the NMB throw out the process by which airlines allow their employees to unionize due to Delta Airlines’ union elections. Delta Airline’s rules about the unionization process currently require a majority of the employees to support unionization in order for the process to move forward. For greedy, labor bosses at the AFL-CIO this reasonable standard which has been in place for nearly a century is – all of a sudden – unworkable.

The AFL-CIO wants to change the rules so that more workplaces can be under the authority of labor bosses, many of whom have sordid pasts like Mr. Richard Trumka.

Simply stated, this is an attack on the democratic process and highlights the means by which the AFL-CIO is attempting to force unionization on workers across the country.

By attempting to change these rules in the airline industry, the AFL-CIO is demonstrating exactly why the rules were put in place to begin with – to protect industries that are critical to the infrastructure and operation of the country. Snatching the power away from workers and forcing a minority rule is just plain wrong, any way you look at it.

I believe that NMB’s proposal is also a backdoor scheme to usher in portions, if not all, of the job-killing Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act (EFCA), which will also force unionization on workers.

EFCA is at the top of the union bosses’ agenda because it will increase dues-paying members at a time when private-sector union membership is at its lowest in recent history.

The Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act would give the government control over contract negotiations and lead to decisions over workplace benefits, rules, and salaries that are then binding and cannot be appealed. In addition to workers putting their fate in the hands of a government arbitrator, workers would lose the right to vote by secret ballot during union-organizing elections.

Yet, EFCA will cause a loss of 600,000 jobs in the first year it’s passed, with more to come in the following years. There is no good that can come from forced unionization that will result in more unemployment and lost freedoms.

This NMB proposal is nothing but another bailout for special interests at the expense of worker freedoms. The American people do not support forced unionization and the National Mediation Board’s actions set a dangerous precedent that the public and small business across the country cannot and will not support.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys helped Robert Prime, an employee of L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace, LLC at the Naval Air Station, file unfair labor practice charges in December 2003 against the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union Local Lodge 2777. The charges alleged that union officials violated Prime’s rights by forcing him to renew his objection to funding union political advocacy every single year.

NLRB administrative law judge Michael A. Marcionese issued a ruling from the bench yesterday at the conclusion of a hearing in Pensacola. Marcionese found that the IAM policy was arbitrary, discriminatory, and bordered on being irrational. Although Foundation attorneys have asked for refunds for any objecting employee nationally within the last four years, the scope of the remedy will remain unclear for the next few weeks until the judge issues a supporting written ruling.

In November 2003, Prime filed an objection with IAM union officials to funding their political activities, as the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck decision permits. The Beck decision recognized that workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership and cannot be forced to pay for activities unrelated to collective bargaining. However, when Prime asked union officials to honor his request as a “continuing objection,” IAM officials refused, claiming that Prime and his coworkers must object annually because they are not subject to the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

IAM union officials already accept “continuing objections” from railroad and airline employees covered by the RLA due to favorable rulings in prior Foundation cases. However, union officials arbitrarily refuse to abide by those rulings for employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act.

“America’s workers may have one fewer hoop to jump through to reclaim their forced dues used for politics,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

“However, this lengthy legal battle underscores why no one should be forced to pay dues to an unwanted union in the first place.”

Florida’s highly-popular Right to Work law, on the books since 1944, is one of 22 state laws that secure the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union.

However, because Vertex Aerospace employees work on federal property under “exclusive federal jurisdiction,” the state’s Right to Work law does not protect those workers from being forced to pay union dues to keep their jobs.