A judge has blocked 10,000 passenger service agents at American Airlines from voting in a union representation election that the National Mediation Board had ordered to go forward beginning June 21. U.S. District Judge Terry Means cited February's anti-union FAA bill, which requires 50 percent, rather than 35 percent, of workers to sign cards asking for a union election.
The Communications Workers of America is arguing that because it requested an election before the new law went into effect, the law should not be applied retroactively and the election should go forward. However:
Means found that American was likely to prevail in a lawsuit challenging criteria used by the National Mediation Board, or NMB, to permit the vote. The agency overseeing union balloting had asked Means to dismiss the complaint.
A hearing will be held on June 21, the day the election had been supposed to start.
The FAA bill currently blocking this vote was pushed by Republicans and embraced by Democrats as a compromise. Pushing the threshold for a union election to 50 percent is the least of what it does—after all, you need 50 percent to win an election anyway—the law also gives airlines a new arsenal of weapons to drag out elections and intimidate union supporters. If the outcome of the June 21 hearing is that the new law applies to this election, American Airlines will have the opportunity to put those new weapons into effect against its workers, above and beyond the anti-union campaign it is already running.