Free Republic

Labor leaders bet big on an Obama victory in 2008, hoping Congress would enact, and the Democratic president would sign, "card-check" -- legislation designed to turn around labor's sagging membership rolls by ending secret-ballot elections in organizing drives. But card-check has never been able to pass the Senate -- not even when Democrats took over Congress in 2006. Instead, presidential appointees friendly to labor are deploying agency muscle. The latest example is taking place largely out of sight -- at the National Mediation Board, a little known agency that oversees union elections for railroads and airlines. Late in 2010, flight...

A rule change made by the Obama administration last May aimed at making it easier to unionize has put Delta Airlines squarely in union sights. The new rule approved by the National Mediation Board — the body responsible for ruling on labor issues in the transportation industry — makes it easier to organize by allowing a simple majority of those voting in a union election to decide its outcome. The board approved the new rule following a Sept. 2009 letter from the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department asking the board to make it easier for transportation unions to win elections. The...

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined a federal lawsuit Monday against a new union organizing rule. The Chamber filed a motion to intervene as a party-plaintiff in the Air Transport Association’s (ATA) suit against the National Mediation Board (NMB). The business lobbying group opposes a rule change finalized by the board earlier this month that makes it easier for workers at companies covered by the Railway Labor Act to unionize. Under the rule, workers who don’t vote in a union election are not counted as votes either for or against forming a union. Such non-votes previously were counted as votes...