In another failed attempt by the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) to drag Jet-Blue into a deal that would ultimately weaken the company’s employee-employer relationship, ALPA was again given the red light by the company’s non-union employees.  This is especially compelling given the National Mediation Board’s (NMB) recent move to facilitate unionization in the transportation industry. Jet Blue employees reaffirmed their 2008 decision to remain union free last week when they, once again, rejected unions at the ballot box.

ALPA’s rejection by private workers in ‘08 necessitated a game-changer, one that would finally allow the union to “organize” JetBlue employees. In 2010, the National Mediation board would go even further in catapulting big labor’s policy agenda.  The International Association of Machinists, along with the NMB (not surprisingly), displayed its guns in a successful attempt to change certain rules that’d governed union election rules for 75 years. Now, only a majority of voting members are required to certify a union, not the long-accepted majority of members in a workforce. This rule change is especially problematic because it is nearly impossible for workers to decertify their union under NMB rules.

Luckily, House Republicans have taken steps to remedy this federal overreach.     

Overturning NMB’s new provision, Title XI within the FAA Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2011, is vital to ensuring fairness between union and non-union workers.

Workers within the private sector, most likely, would be more willing to take into consideration joining a union if such unfair policies weren’t forced on them (policies that will come to mirror those of the NLRB).  In sort, unions – as usual – sought higher ground through stealthy provisions.  Let’s let this be an example as to how far the government, as well as the ever-growing reach of the union, now  systemized into a machine, is willing to go just so those willing to work hard can be given a bad image. For the time being, we can rest assured knowing that JetBlue’s workers “direct relationship with the company” remains intact.