Main Street

Putting Democracy in Flight

Huge news: Airline and railroad workers who wanted to form unions have for more than 75 years faced a hurdle other workers don’t face. They had to get the majority of all workers to vote yes, not just the majority of those who voted. People who didn’t vote were counted as no.

Imagine if that’s how all elections worked. Let’s say if you didn’t vote then it counted as voting for nothing to change, no matter how high a percentage of the people voting had voted for new candidates or policies.
That would suck. And it would be undemocratic.

Now, the National Mediation Board has issued a new rule that says that airlines and railroads work under the same rules as everyone else. The yes votes get counted against the no votes, not against the no votes plus all the people who didn’t vote.

Naturally, the airlines’ trade group plans to file suit trying to get the new rule overturned.

Tags: unions