Calls The Compromise 'Crippling' To Labor Organizations

As was to be expected, not everyone is happy with the compromise worked out between House and Senate leaders to move a long-term FAA funding bill forward in congress. Sito Pantoja, General Vice President of Transportation for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has issued a statement criticizing a Congressional proposal that provides long-term FAA funding at what he says is the expense of airline and rail workers’ rights to join unions, strongly opposing the labor proposal that he calls "flawed" and says "jeopardizes the independence of the National Mediation Board (NMB)."

"The proposal imposes Congressionally-mandated standards for union representation elections and oversight that have always been up to independent federal labor authorities to decide," Pantoja said in the statement. "Holding a much-needed FAA bill hostage, as Republicans have done for months, is inexcusable. The IAM urges Congress to pass a clean FAA reauthorization bill that does not include politically motivated provisions that only serve to hurt American workers.”

Included in the FAA Reauthorization bill are changes to the Railway Labor Act, the federal labor law covering airline and railroad workers, which would require the support of at least 50 percent of an employee group before a union representation election could be held. Currently, there is no statutory requirement, but National Mediation Board policy sets a 35 percent threshold. Other private sector workers who fall under the National Labor Relations Act need only 30 percent to trigger an election.

Pantoja says that while the proposal requires the NMB to hold public hearings before changing its rules, this very proposal imposes new standards on the NMB without the benefit of any such public hearing.

FMI: www.goiam.org