Some details discovered in the Railway Labor Act (RLA) itself need exposure. Anyone can read the flaws in the Act on their unions website. While section 153 provides a balanced method of choosing arbitrators and neutrals, section 154 causes the National Mediation Board (NMB) to be lopsided. The President selects and appoints the three who make up the top of the NMB and any two can be of the same political party. Those three appoint experts and assistants to act in official capacity "and such other officers" is part of the wording in the third part of 154, granting a very wide berth. Part four of 154 states the Mediation Board so appointed by the President to delegate duties, "may assign or refer any section of it's work to an employee of the board" and choose who those employees will be! So, Bush appoints the board that contacts the railroads to see who they want hired to settle any dispute! Interest-based bargaining or bargaining labor's interests right out the door?
OK, the President stacks the NMB, the NMB stacks it's mediators, section 155 refers to the NMBs function and gives those mediators sole determination as to whether negotiations are successful, or progressing towards settlement. The mediator alone decides this. That means no time limit, so this can extend indefinitely. But, timing is everything, especially with an election on the horizon. So at the 'right time' according to the mediator, the NMB will declare an impasse and offer binding arbitration, which either party can refuse and throw the whole thing into self-help, resulting in a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB). With the very dark nature of the government agency we are now under as the anti-labor forces rule the roost in congress, can we expect a Bush appointed PEB before the next election?
RLA section 160 grants the President the right to select a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) at his discretion (whoops)! He determines who and how many will serve on that board and they are supposed to be "disinterested" in either carrier or organization. Sure...Bush is supposed to be acting in Americas best interest too, right? So much hot air in this Act, it's obviously concocted to tilt like the Tower of Pisa in the interests of those that put these clowns in Washington in the first place! Who, then could dispute the political weight of this hammer designed to smash labor?
Few may realize the RLA was fashioned after one of Mussolini's first acts as Fascist Dictator of Italy in the early 20's. The many labor unions in European culture would create a situation where any one of say, 15 organizations in a factory, were always on strike, making it impossible for Italy to rebuild after the first world war. Mussolini made it legal for unions to organize, but any unresolved dispute would be settled by the government instead of strikes, which became illegal. Think the Italian government got a few kickbacks from the corporations? “Gee, I dunno.” Please, folks we need to wake up! What is the Railway Labor Act but a carbon copy of the original "Mussolini Act"?
US railroads that were nationalized by Woodrow Wilson during the first world war were returned to private ownership by the 1920s as the expanding rail unions that began 50 years earlier were making gains. Labor had a tough climb to power. During the 1894 Pullman strike railroads hired Pinkertons with ball bats and guns to combat organizing and strikes. The anti-union war resulted in violence and death. Despite the conflicts and maybe because of them, US rail union workers became the highest paid craftsmen and laborers in the world. The carriers lobbied congress for legislation prohibiting strikes. Bloody debacles and disruptions to the economy may have sparked birth to the infamous Railway Labor Act of 1926. It allowed unions to organize unmolested, but government intervention could outlaw strikes. The rest is downhill history, as the "aristocrats of labor" began to write their final chapter of demise. Today those loading bananas on boats make more than locomotive engineers, who were once the king of those "aristocrats."
Labor has not had a voice in the selection of boards who make recommendations determining our livelihood and even the very job itself. Members can't strike, slow down, "blue-flu" or even strictly apply the rules without getting sued for railroad losses. If the Railway Labor Act isn't amended to remove the politics and give labor a voice, railroads will just wait the process out for a stacked PEB to give them what they want. Labor has lost again and again to those able to fund political campaigns with more dollars than any union could ever hope to match. So, if your ROCU is not directing it's strength of unity at the crux of the issue, the railroads will continue to play their little game, just in a different way. Recently, when the coalition of rail unions wanted schedules to bring in experts to argue productivity, the NCCC refused, deliberately causing an upheaval and excuse to trigger step one, mediation protection by a Bush appointed NMB. UTU crew consist/FELA battle gave another carrier excuse for mediation. Step two may skip arbitration right to a Bush PEB with recommendations an anti-labor congress could impose, all on the railroads timetable.
It's a good bet the carriers "special instructions" to Robert Allen include the speed he is to travel on their schedule due to future political concerns. How then, can any rail union worth it's salt claim to be operating in the best interests of it's members, if not at least loudly protesting the hamstring effect dictated in the Railway Labor Act? If all or even most of the rail unions at once cried foul, could congress pretend not to hear the call? Could the newspapers refuse to print the articles of protest? Instead, what do we see the unions do? Complain about who is in the White House, but never attempting to remove dictatorial powers imposed on us over and again.
Why aren't our unions writing these things, marching on Washington, raising holy hell and demanding a say in the process? Why not? Why do we have to ask these questions? What's really going on here? Do railroads themselves have another edge, still uncovered? There must be a reason for zero effort to break out of the RLA cage. There has to be more and items in this article may only be the tip of the iceberg. The why of It could be volumes. There are those who know the answers and only when we get to the very bottom of this will we begin the rise back to the top. That's my take on it, others appreciated.
BW
