Marathon Pundit: NMB overreach: Unions split edition

Monday, February 13, 2012

NMB overreach: Unions split edition

Not so much National Labor Relations Board news today, but its "independent" sister, the National Mediation Board, is in the news.

From The Hill:

Labor's division over the bill funding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has helped clear the way for President Obama to sign it.

Unions are split in their opposition to the measure, with some fearing its provision on union election rules endangers organizing.

Union officials say they were kept in the dark about the negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that helped pass the bill.

The resulting compromise changed the Railway Labor Act (RLA) so that the percentage of a company's workforce needed to vote for holding a union election was increased from 35 to 50 percent.

More from Townhall:

After a yearlong fight, House Republicans land a blow against the politicized National Mediation Board (NMB). After assuming office in 2009, President Obama appointed two pro-union members to the three member NMB, the federal agency that oversees union-employer relations in the transportation industry. Effectively controlling the board, Obama’s Democrat appointees rewrote long-held election law to make it easier for unions to organize transportation workers. While the National Labor Relations Board’s nefarious activity has received much publicity, Obama's regulatory overreach began with the NMB.

Since the National Railway Act's was ratified in 1926, a union needed to receive a majority of votes from a working group in order for those workers to be unionized. After Obama's appointees rewrote the rules with a 2010 rulemaking, unions were only required to receive a majority of all voting members’ votes. This unprecedented rulemaking threatened to disenfranchise workers and was a blatant attempt to inflate union membership numbers, and union dues.

Recognizing how problematic the NMB rulemaking was, Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) inserted a provision (Title IX) into the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that overturned the NMB rule. During debate of Mica's bill, Republican Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) joined Democrats and offered an amendment to strip Chairman Mica's provision out of the bill. LaTourette failed, but his move highlighted how difficult it would be to get FAA authorization across the finish line, especially with Democrats controlling the Senate and White House.

Rudeness reported by the Chicago Sun-Times: Aurora Labor Backers Take Protest to Home of ATMI Company's CEO

Big Government: Teacher Union's 'Friend of Public Education' Kills Charter School Bill in Washington State

Lots of right-to-work news. From the Wall Street Journal--paid subscription required:

After the 2008 election, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and, of course, the presidency. They used that victory to push through an agenda as radical as any seen in this country since FDR—unprecedented deficit-financed stimulus spending, more regulations, a new health-care entitlement, etc.

In 2010, the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives and seven Senate seats in a startling reversal of fortune. But instead of rethinking their agenda, Democrats in Washington have doubled down, marching in lock-step toward ever bigger government.

Well, the states are now starting to change the playing field. The latest shock to the Democratic agenda is Indiana's adoption of a right-to-work law that bans contracts that require private-sector employees to pay union dues. And there are many more such changes on the state level to follow.

Most high-school civics students would agree that no American worker should either be prohibited from joining a union or required to join one as a condition of employment. And no union member—or anyone else for that matter—should be required to contribute to political causes they oppose. Yet in 27 states, if more than 50% of workers agree to create a union shop, workers are still required to join the union and pay dues even if those dues are used for political causes they disapprove of.