From Investor’s Business Daily

Labor: While the focus was on card-check legislation that would allow workers to be bullied into union membership, a federal board has quietly changed a rule to let unions organize without a majority of workers.

The National Mediation Board, an agency charged with resolving labor disputes in the rail and airline industries, has approved a rule shift that heavily favors unions.

Under the change, OK’d by a 2-to-1 vote early this month, a union will be certified if a majority of those voting cast “yes” votes. Under the previous 75-year-old rule, certification required a majority of eligible workers, not just those voting. It’s conceivable that a company, or group of workers in a company, could be organized even if much less than a majority is in favor of unionization.

Take Delta Air Lines, which is facing union votes among its flight attendants and ground workers after absorbing Northwest Airlines to become the world’s largest carrier. It could be forced to deal with a union of 20,500 flight attendants with more than half not wanting to be members.

Unlike other major carriers, Delta has remained virtually free of the burden of a unionized work force. Only its pilots are organized, and it seems Delta employees continue to be proud of their independence. Just last year, before the addition of 6,500 Northwest flight attendants, a union attempt failed when fewer than 40% of Delta’s 14,000 flight attendants voted to organize.

The new rule, now subject to a 60-day comment period, was proposed by a union — the AFL-CIO — and it reeks of politics. The two mediation board members who voted for it were Democratic appointees. One, Linda Puchala, a former flight attendant union leader, was appointed by President Barack Obama. The other, Harry Hoglander, is a former airline pilot and official in a pilots union.

Seems these two, taking their cue from the same Democrats intent on forcing health care reform on an unwilling public, rammed through the change. Mediation Board Chairman Elizabeth Dougherty, a former Bush aide who voted to keep the rule in place, told nine senators in a letter:

“The proposal was completed without my input or participation, and I was excluded from any discussions regarding the timing of the proposed rule.”

While her colleagues were fronting for organized labor, Dougherty thoughtfully questioned the board’s authority to implement the change. Her argument, one we find compelling, is that the power to alter the rule rests in Congress.

If the rule becomes permanent after the 60-day comment period, the potential for workers who don’t want union representation to be forced under the control of organized labor increases greatly.

The Delta employees, and any others, who have been fighting off unions for years might find themselves subject to a master they didn’t ask for.

From The Wall Street Journal

Unions are pushing state lawmakers to pass legislation that would make organizing workers easier, as efforts to rewrite federal organizing laws remain stalled in Congress.

Oregon passed the Worker Freedom Act, which prohibits companies from holding mandatory employee meetings to talk about organizing.

Employers say mandatory meetings, known as “captive audience meetings,” are necessary to counter misleading information disseminated by union organizers. Unions say employers use the meetings to gauge worker sympathies and pressure workers not to join the union.

Union members support the Employee Free Choice Act at a Labor Day parade in Detroit. Efforts to shape organizing laws are turning to states.

It is unclear if the bill — which was signed into law in June but doesn’t take effect until January — would be pre-empted by federal law. Oregon business groups say it should be and that the state law would violate employers’ rights.

“It completely undermines employer speech,” said J.L. Wilson, the vice president of government affairs for Associated Oregon Industries, a Salem-based trade group.

The organization said it is planning to file a lawsuit to challenge the law as early as November in U.S. District Court in Oregon.

Mr. Wilson also said the bill was “a political favor” to labor unions.

Diane Rosenbaum, a Democratic Oregon state senator and chief sponsor of the law, denied it was payback for labor’s political support and said she believes it will survive a legal challenge. “What this bill says is you can hold these meetings. You just can’t force people to attend,” she said. “We worked hard with legislative counsel to make sure it will hold up.”

Oregon is the only state to pass such a law so far, but it is considered a test case, with developments closely watched by national business groups and state-level labor leaders around the country.

Similar bills prohibiting mandatory workplace meetings about union organizing passed this year in the Connecticut Senate and the Michigan House, both controlled by Democrats, but stalled in each state.

Both sides see the Oregon law as a local variation of the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as card check, which allows unions to organize workers by getting them to sign cards, often without an employer’s knowledge.

Patrick Semmens, with The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which opposes efforts to expand unionization, said Oregon’s law is similar to card check because both limit an employer’s access to workers during union organizing. The Oregon law is “a step toward card check,” he said.

In Washington state, Democrats dropped efforts this year to push the Worker Privacy Act, which would ban mandatory meetings about unionization efforts, after an internal state AFL-CIO email was leaked to lawmakers, saying unions wouldn’t contribute to state politicians until the bill — the unions’ top priority — was passed. Democrats said the email raised legal and ethical questions.

In Hawaii, Democratic lawmakers overrode the Republican governor’s veto in August to pass a bill that enables unions to organize agriculture and public-sector workers via cards instead of elections.

The law requires employers with annual revenue of at least $5 million and all state and county governments to collectively bargain once a union is certified “without an election.”

These state efforts are viewed as a plan B for organized labor frustrated by its inability to get Employee Free Choice Act passed.

“While Congress is still debating the federal legislation, we think it’s important to move ahead in states where it’s possible to take action,” said William Samuel, director of legislative affairs for the AFL-CIO.

The state efforts face stiff headwinds. “There is a noticeably less friendly mood in the country toward unions,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

In the Nov. 3 elections, Republicans won the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey against Democratic opponents who were supportive of union issues.

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com