Senate Republicans Fail to End Majority Rule in Union Elections
Senate Republicans today lost their bid to block new democratic election procedures for workers in the aviation and rail industries who want to form unions and bargaining collectively.
Earlier this year, the National Mediation Board (NMB) issued a rule that says air and rail union elections must be decided by a majority of votes cast. In June, a federal court upheld it. A resolution (S.J. Res. 30) to overturn the new rule failed 43-56.
Previously under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which covers rail and airline workers, each worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote.
But Senate Republicans—who are elected by a majority of voters who cast ballots in their states—said workers should be denied those same basic democratic rights and introduced the resolution.
In a letter to the Senate urging defeat of the resolution, AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director William Samuel says the same “undemocratic procedures” that Republicans want to impose on air and rail workers, “would never be tolerated in our civic elections.”
Transportation Workers Face ‘Undemocratic Process’ When Seeking Union
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If a worker in the airline or rail industry doesn’t cast a ballot in a union election, under the rules of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) that nonaction is automatically counted as a “no” vote.
Last week, the National Mediation Board (NMB) held a hearing on a proposed new rule that would stop the automatic “veto by silence” and permit a majority of workers who actually vote to decide the union election.
Flight attendants, union officials and labor experts explain the need for change in a new video report from DELTAAFA, the flight attendants group that is working to win a voice for the Delta Air Lines and former Northwest Airlines flight attendants who make up the merged Delta.
