Obama Administration Labor Rule Changes Unfair to Employers

The Obama administration's labor relations agencies are embarked on an aggressive campaign to change the rules of collective bargaining with a clear goal of boosting private-sector union membership. But the dramatic rule changes are unfair to employers.

Take, for example, unionization elections at Delta Air Lines, the air carrier with the largest amount of traffic at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Last year, flight attendants at Delta, which is nonunion, and Northwest Airlines, which was unionized and has merged with Delta, voted against joining the Association of Flight Attendants. The results were the same in a vote by employees in a potential bargaining unit for the International Association of Machinists.

These rejections occurred even after the National Mediation Board, which oversees railroad and airline union elections, changed the rules under which such elections are held.

For seven decades prior to the administration of President Barack Obama, railway and airline unionization elections could be won by unions only if they secured the votes of a majority of all of the employees in the relevant job classification at the transportation firm. Since 2009, unions need only win a majority of those voting in the current unionization election.

Last month, however, the National Mediation Board, which has a new majority under the Obama administration, has announced that it will be conducting an investigation into four elections at Delta, following complaints that the airline interfered with the votes.

The investigation will be conducted by an agency whose three-member governing board contains two former union leaders.

If the agency finds against the airline, it can order more elections. The legislation creating the National Mediation Board allows for no court challenge of the agency's findings. Fairness requires that it be amended to do so.

Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union issues in other industries, is proposing to change its rules governing the union representation votes. The proposals would reduce the time between a petition for a unionization vote and the actual election; remove a company's ability to contest whether certain employees are eligible for unionization prior to the vote; and also remove employers' ability to appeal NLRB rulings against it prior to the vote.

All of these changes are being made in the name of speeding up the representation vote process even though, according to The Wall Street Journal, in 2010 more than nine out of 10 unionization elections were held within 56 days of the filing of a petition seeking such an election.

What this change is really about is limiting companies' ability to make their case against unionization.

These rule changes are unfair to job providers and, for that matter, workers. Their votes ought to be respected by the National Mediation Board, and they should be given a chance to hear both sides on a unionization vote by the National Labor Relations Board. If the NLRB goes ahead with its rule changes, questions ought to be asked in Congress.

REPRINTED FROM THE DETROIT NEWS

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM