The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) presents a challenge to workers who wish to organize and collectively bargain. Yet workers
in the airline and railroad industry are subject to an entirely
different set of rules and regulations for organizing. Find out why
the Railway Labor Act (RLA) makes the path for forming a union even
more difficult than for workers covered by the NLRA.
Obstacle 1: A Higher Threshold for Voting
The RLA requires that in order to form a union, there must be
support from a majority among all eligible company employees—not just
those who turnout to vote. This requirement is a higher threshold than
the NLRA—and even general U.S. election law—both of which require
majority support from only those who actually vote in an election.
Imagine if in order to win the presidency, John Kerry or George W. Bush
needed the votes of a majority of all eligible voters!
Obstacle 2: Organizing Companywide, Nationwide
In addition to the voting threshold, the RLA requires that a majority
of a company’s employees at ALL company locations must vote for the
union—not just those at any one location. This requires workers to
reach out across huge geographical areas, as many of them are covered
by national companies. So airline workers in Baltimore cannot decide
to organize by themselves, they must also enlist the support of their
coworkers in airports across the country.
Obstacle 3: RLA: Benefiting Employers, Not Employees
One example of how this law hinders organizing is that
anti-union employers strive to be covered by it. When Federal Express
(FedEx) workers tried to organize in 1996, management officials
aggressively and successfully lobbied Congress to retain its status as
an airline so its employees would not get the chance to organize under
the less-restrictive NLRA.1
It may come as no surprise that workers are organized at UPS because
these workers—employed by a company that is no more an airline than
FedEx is—are covered by the NLRA. If FedEx employees now want to
organize, they must mount a Herculean effort to reach out to 80,000
workers in cities from coast to coast.2 Thus the company gets the help of labor law to hinder its employees’ attempts to organize.
Citations:
1. Krause, Kristin S. "FedEx vs.
Teamsters; Teamsters Continue to Organize FedEx Despite Obstacles."
The Journal of Commerce: Traffic World. June 23, 1997. Pg. 26.
2. Ibid.
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