Big Labor Organizing Amendment Fails in House

Despite a veto threat from President Obama, the House of Representatives rejected a Obama-backed, pro-big labor amendmentto the FAA Reauthorization bill. In July 2010, the National Mediation Board — without the consent of Congress — decided that unions could organize airline and railroad workers if a majority of voting workers supported unionization, rather than a majority of all workers in the proposed bargaining unit — as had long been the case. This means that unions can be certified as the sole bargaining agents under the Railway Labor Act with support from a minority of workers.

For example, if a company has 100 workers but only 80 turn out to vote in the election, it would only take 41 pro-union votes for the union to organize the company’s workers. The amendment passed in the House would overturn the Mediation Board’s appeasement of the union bosses.

 Sixteen Republicans voted with Big Labor. The bill now goes to the Senate.

• Rep. Diaz-Balart (FL)
• Rep. Emerson (MO)
• Rep. Gibson (NY)
• Rep. Grimm (NY)
• Rep. Johnson (IL)
• Rep. Jones (NC)
• Rep. King (NY)
• Rep. LaTourette (OH)
• Rep. LoBiondo (NJ)
• Rep. Platts (PA)
• Rep. Reichert (WA)
• Rep. Rivera (FL)
• Rep. Ros-Lehtinen (FL)
• Rep. Runyan (NJ)
• Rep. Smith (NJ)
• Rep. Young (AK)