NMB overreach: Virgin Air and my uncle the railroad fireman

The National Mediation Board is a mini-National Labor Relations Board. Like the NLRB, it oversees union-management disputes, but only in the airline and rail industries.

First, a brief history lesson: Unions, along with thick-headed management, came close to destroying the domestic rail industry in the late 1960s. Think GM and Chrysler in 2009. The federal government took over passenger train service from the railroads four decades ago--its Amtrak "temporary solution" to the problem has never made money. Washington created freight-centered Conrail from several bankrupt rail lines, that venture did a little better, and Conrail became a private endeavor before being split by two other railways. Disclosure: An aunt of mine, still living, worked for Conrail in the 1970s.

About the unions: An uncle from the other side of my family was a locomotive engineer for the Illinois Central line. But his first job with the IC was working as a fireman. No, he didn't extinguish fires--railroad firemen were responsible for shoveling coal into the train's engine. Were. When my uncle was hired by the historic rail line in the early 1950s, all of the IC locomotives were diesel-powered. But the union decreed that firemen were still needed and management went along.

Back to 2011: The radically-pro labor National Mediation Board isn't forcing firemen onto the airlines, but it could make it much harder for them to make money, particularly Virgin American and JetBlue, two budget airlines that are non-union.

The Transport Workers Union has filed paperwork with the NMB to organize Virgin American flight attendants.

More from the Wall Street Journal--paid subscription required:

If the NMB agrees that the signature cards are valid, it would schedule an election and oversee the balloting within 45 days. An election would come after a new NMB rule went into effect in July 2010 allows a union to be created by a majority of worker votes cast, instead of requiring a majority of the entire work group to cast ballots and a majority of those to choose representation. The controversial rule change, which reverses a 70-year practice of counting nonvotes as no votes, was expected to make unionization easier to achieve. But a recent failure of the Air Line Pilots Association to organize JetBlue Airways Corp. pilots showed that the new rule isn't bullet-proof.

Virgin America, which took wing in 2007, has won numerous awards for its low fares, stylish service and tech-laden aircraft. But the carrier has had only one profitable quarter in its brief existence—in the third quarter of 2010. Yet it continues to grow quickly, and expects to end this year with 46 Airbus A320 planes in its fleet. It serves a dozen cities in the U.S and three in Mexico.

And that NMB election rule change, dropping a requirement that a majority of employees vote for union representation, was replaced with one that calls for just a majority of workers voting. Yes, I'm well aware that our political elections are based on the same principal, but no rail or airline union has ever been decertified.

Look at it this way: Jimmy Carter could still be president if the Electoral Collage used NMB election rules.

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