Where did everybody go? We gotta keep this thing rolling.
here you go, chew on this......................
Unions are hoping the National Mediation Board, as guided by the Railway Labor Act, will now be more willing to preside over difficult labor negotiations. In particular, unions would like to see an acceleration in the series of steps that airline and railroad workers must take before the NMB declares a 30-day "cooling off" period, after which workers are free to strike.
"It seems that over the past several years, mediators have been reluctant to get to the (final) stage," said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants. "The impact has been to not bring pressure to the corporate side."
In May, Obama nominated Laura Puchala, a former flight attendant and union leader ,to the National Mediation Board, which is responsible for settling disputes between management and labor.
Puchala is one of three board members, but she made her presence felt last month when she supported a change in a rule under the Railway Labor Act that has traditionally favored carriers when workers tried to unionize. Absent voters are currently counted against union membership, but the new rule would simply count them as abstentions, as they are in national elections.
The industry's trade group, the Air Transport Association, came out against the proposed change.