Obama’s Union Gift

In a huge gift to Big Union, the Obama administration’s two Big Union appointees – Linda Puchala and Harry Hoglander outvoted, by 2-1, Bush appointee Elizabeth Dougherty to make it much easier for workers in the railroad and airline industries to unionize.

Under the previous rules – 75 years in existence – if a company had 100 employees 51 of them would have to vote “yes” to unionize.  The new rules stipulate that if a vote to unionize is held but only 10 of those 100 employees show up to vote only 6 “yes” votes will be required to unionize.

Big Union, a massive special interest of Democrats, pushed hard for this change because it will make it much easier to expand their membership numbers which have declined greatly for the previous 60 years from its peak in 1950 at 30% to just 12.3%, or 15.3 million, in 2009.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, this rule change was supported by only 44% of elected officials and in the Senate it was supported by just 39% of Senators.

The rule change brings the National Mediation Board into line with the National Labor Relation’s Board rules.  The two groups had different standards because railroads – and later airlines – were considered to be elements of national security because of their abilities to transport people and goods so quickly as well as to prevent a local union from going on strike thus bringing down the entire transportation network of that company.

It should be no surprise that both Puchala and Hoglander are Big Union members.  Elizabeth Dougherty was not a Big Union member.

According to CNS News:

No fewer than four times throughout its history, under both Democratic and Republican Administrations, the NMB has rejected challenges to the “majority rule.” In addition, the Supreme Court twice upheld this concept.

There is no provision in the Railway Labor Act for members who vote to unionize to later decertify a union. Thus, under the new ruling, if say, an airline has 5,000 employees, and only 200 vote on whether to organize a union, that means that 101 employees could vote to unionize permanently.

The consequences of this “change” came about because of the huge donations Big Union makes to Democratic candidates:

Over the last two decades, six of the top 10 contributors to congressional and presidential campaigns were unions, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

These six unions shelled out $187.6 million, surpassing the $142.2 million donated by the four non-union “heavy hitters,” as the center labels the top 10 contributors.

Among the top 50 contributors, unions gave a total of nearly $343 million to political candidates running for federal office.

All of this money flowing into the pockets of Democratic candidates even as union members declines year after year.  This change by the National Mediation Board is only going to add costs to the bottom line of airlines struggling with high fuel costs, reduced travel, and falling ticket prices.

Expect to see more layoffs, airline mergers, and some bankruptcies as a result of this political change.