<\/p>\n
Washington, DC (January 19, 2010)<\/b> \u2013 Citing substantial legal precedent, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a motion with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking the recusal of the two former union officials who are behind a dramatic rule change proposal on how a union is imposed on non-union railway and airline industry workers.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe NMB, the federal agency tasked with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, is quietly rolling back 75 years of precedent and changing labor union organizing regulations, greasing the skids for union organizers to lock industry workers into union ranks.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe two board members who now comprise the majority of the board, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, were both appointed by President Barack Obama and were executive officers for two of the very unions pushing for the changes.\n<\/p>\n
\nHoglander was a union official with the Air Line Pilots Association union and Puchala was an officer of the Association of Flight Attendants union. Both unions are a major part of an American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) union-led coalition urging the NMB to discard its policy of requiring a true majority of all workers within a collective bargaining unit to decide for themselves if they wish to be represented by a union. The new procedure would stack the deck in favor of unionization by requiring only a majority of workers actually voting in a union organizing election to make that decision for the whole group.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe members voted 2-1 to preliminarily support the controversial change, and NMB Chair Elizabeth Dougherty has criticized the hasty actions of the two members.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPresident Obama\u2019s appointed Big Labor operatives on the National Mediation Board should recuse themselves from this controversial effort to give union bosses the upper hand over independent-minded workers,\u201d said Stefan Gleason, vice president of National Right to Work. \u201cIf these members do not recuse themselves, the NMB\u2019s actions will betray the integrity of government decision-making as well as President Obama\u2019s pledge that his personnel would avoid these very violations of ethics.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nFoundation attorneys have previously appeared before the NMB asking for the proposed change to be rejected because it would make it exceedingly difficult for independent-minded workers to resist Big Labor\u2019s well-funded, professional organizing machine, particularly since these campaigns must be run across entire, often-nationwide bargaining units. The proposed change also imposes a greater burden on employees who wish to refrain from union membership by forcing them to either take affirmative action to oppose the union or otherwise potentially allow far less than a majority to make that decision for them.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, DC (January 19, 2010)<\/b> \u2013 Citing substantial legal precedent, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a motion with the National Mediation Board (NMB) seeking the recusal of the two former union officials who are behind a dramatic rule change proposal on how a union is imposed on non-union railway and airline industry workers.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe NMB, the federal agency tasked with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries, is quietly rolling back 75 years of precedent and changing labor union organizing regulations, greasing the skids for union organizers to lock industry workers into union ranks.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe two board members who now comprise the majority of the board, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, were both appointed by President Barack Obama and were executive officers for two of the very unions pushing for the changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[888],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n