OTHER MEDIA REPORTS
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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A proposed change in how some unions are formed could have a bearing on years of attempts to organize ramp workers at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
A rule proposed by the National Mediation Board, which resolves disputes in the railroad and airline industries, would allow a union if a majority of employees voting supported one.
That's an easier standard to meet than the current Railway Labor Act, a 75-year-old law that allows a union only if approved by a majority of all workers who would be represented -- not just a majority of those actually voting. In fact, workers who sit out the election are automatically recorded as having voted "no."
Ramp workers in Cleveland have been trying to unionize since the 1990s. In a half dozen or so elections, the majority of voting employees have said they wanted a union, said Mark Frey, who heads Teamsters Local 964, which is trying to organize the 600 employees who handle luggage and marshal planes. He said other unions have organized past campaigns.
"To us, it is an undemocratic process," Frey said of current rules. "Nowhere in this country do we elect anyone on a 50 percent plus one of those eligible to vote. It is always on a simple majority of those who take the interest in voting."
Continental Airlines, the biggest carrier at the airport, says the National Mediation Board should leave things as they are.
"We strongly oppose changes to the balloting procedures because we believe it allows a minority of union supporters to vote in a union versus a majority [of workers being organized] that has been required for the past 75 years," said Julie King, a Continental spokeswoman.
Rena Crowley, a Continental ramp worker, said the airlines have made reaching the higher threshold harder by packing the employee list with people who can't vote, such as former employees.
"They have unfairly put people on our list and said that they were ramp workers," Crowley said. Frey said unions often haven't been given enough time to fulfill the laborious task of challenging names.
King wouldn't comment on the allegations, but she did say past votes at Cleveland Hopkins offered a true reflection of workers' wishes.
"They have consistently rejected representation by labor organizations," she said.
In September, the AFL-CIO sent a letter to the National Mediation Board requesting that representation be granted if a union was able to win a majority of the valid ballots cast, said Edward Wytkind, president of the labor federation's Transportation Trades Department.
Wytkind said the change would create fairer elections and bring the board more in line with elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, which regulates the interactions between most private-sector unions and employers.
In its request for comment about the rules change, published Nov. 3 in the Federal Register, the National Mediation Board said why it was considering the change.
"The proposed change, if adopted, should bring the board's election process in line with industry developments and discourage employee nonparticipation by giving every employee a chance to affirmatively express their preference for or against representation," the board wrote.
Chairwoman Elizabeth Dougherty offered a dissenting view, saying the rule should not be changed. The Republican more than hinted at partisan politics. With the appointment this year of a Democrat, the three-person board now has a Democratic majority.
"Regardless of the composition of the board or the inhabitant of the White House, this independent agency has never been in the business of making controversial, one-sided rule changes at the behest of only labor or management," Dougherty wrote.
Said Wytkind: "Government leadership is supposed to be about establishing whatever the policy principles are of the administration in power. The board has changed its policies many times in the past."
The National Mediation Board will accept comments until Jan. 4 and then could enact the changes. Frey said that the Teamsters have filed for an election but that the board hasn't given him a date yet. That means the representation vote could occur before a rule change.
Frey has faith the Teamsters can win an election even without the rules change. But he said he is committed to seeing new rules.
"It is time for a democratic system of voting," he said.