Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Unions turning up the vitriol in FAA fight

Two years ago another oblivious-to-reality Obama controlled agency, the National Mediation Board, overturned 75 years of labor law regarding airline and railroad employees by disposing of the rule that a majority of employees, not just a majority of those voting, are needed to certify a union. Okay, fine, our elections for public office are organized along the lines of the latter. However, every two to six years, depending on the office, voters get the chance to throw the bums out. Quite a few bums discovered that fact last November.

However, no union in the airline and railway industries has ever been decertified. To paraphrase George Orwell in 1984, "If you want a picture of the future, imagine the boot of a union boss stamping on a worker's face—forever."

Okay, I may have overdone the hyperbole a bit, but this is my point: The bar needs to be higher for union elections in these fields.

Big Labor and Obama's enablers of course view it differently. But the House Republican majority wants to put the old rule back in place, which is why it attached a clause doing just that in the latest FAA Reauthorization Bill--which it passed. But it stalled in the Senate, leading to a partial FAA shutdown. By the way, ridiculously overly generous subsidies for rural airports will be dropped if the GOP gets it way.

Frequent White House visitor and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka is turning up the vitriol in regards to the partial shutdown, referring to the RAA Reauthorization Bill as part of the GOP "extreme ideological agenda." The Communications Workers of America is calling the bill, which is sponsored by Rep. John Mica (R-FL), "union busting." What did I say earlier about air and rail unions never being decertified?

Related posts:

Statement from Rep. John Mica on FAA partial shutdown
WFI issues statement concerning FAA situation
Union bosses and Dems behind partial FAA shutdown
GOP bill will eliminate some airport subsidies

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