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RLA Part 1: A Little History, the RLA, and the NMB

RLA Part 1: A Little History, the RLA, and the NMB

September 15, 2018

The Pilot group here at Southwest has not taken the traditional path. They started flying three airplanes between three cities in 1971. Today, SWAPA Pilots fly to 120 destinations in command of 771 aircraft. In 1971, SWA carried 108,554 passengers. Last year, the airline carried 134.1 million passengers. In the past, battles were waged against the Wright Amendment in our backyard. Today, our battles are held on the world stage against Flag-Of-Convenience and State-Owned Enterprise carriers. No one back in 1971, imagined that Southwest would stand, as it does today, as one of the Big Four air carriers. 

 

Why is this history important to you? Because our Pilots need to get familiar with all aspects of our negotiations, including the laws that shape it. Much like SWAPA’s path to this point, the laws have changed over time. SWAPA has created a five-part series of articles to share with you the mechanics and nuances of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), how it has developed, and how it is trending. Let’s start with two questions: Why did the RLA come into being? And who is the National Mediation Board?

 

RLA 101

The RLA is the product of negotiations between railroad labor and management nearly 100 years ago and was created to deal with the decades of bloody labor unrest and frequent railroad shutdowns. (Picture the Wild West railroads up through the 1920s.) Wage cuts led to strikes. Strikes led to shutdowns. Tensions built. People were killed. The RLA replaced a 1920 transportation law that failed to resolve the conflicts between labor and management. It institutionalized “arms-length bargaining” and was intended to promote more stable labor relations. Originally enacted in 1926 for railroads, it was expanded in 1936 to include airlines.

 

If you learn only one thing about the RLA, know this — the single-most important purpose at its heart is to avoid interruption of interstate commerce. Its elaborate design gives labor and management every opportunity to de-escalate. Here are some key protections of the RLA that touch us in our everyday fight for our Pilots:

 

  • It gives employees the right to organize and bargain collectively without employer coercion or interference in who they pick to represent them. 

  • It allows for the prompt disposition of disputes between carriers and their employees. 

  • It imposes a duty on both parties to exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain collective bargaining agreements before taking action. (An example of this was when SWAPA sued the Company in federal court in 2016 to stop it from bringing the MAX into service without bargaining for rates and work conditions.)

NMB 101

The National Mediation Board (NMB) was established in 1934 by Congress as an independent U.S. federal government agency tasked with facilitating labor-management relations for railroads and airlines. It is led by a three-member board nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. What does the NMB do? In its own words, the NMB “promotes the flow of interstate commerce [See a trend?] in the U.S. Airline and Railroad industries through Mediation, Representation, and Arbitration of labor-management disputes.”

 

For the most part, the NMB’s services are voluntary. It does not have oversight powers over our bargaining or dispute resolution issues unless a party requests the Board's services. For example, during extensive and comprehensive contract negotiations (which are sometimes called “Section 6” negotiations), the parties are free to negotiate on their own (“direct negotiations”). Direct negotiations can last months or even years. At some point, if one party believes that an agreement cannot be reached through direct negotiations, that party can apply for the NMB to step in and mediate. The decision to engage the NMB shouldn’t be taken lightly because once it steps in, the NMB holds the power to release or not release the parties from negotiations. 

 

Like its name implies, the National Mediation Board’s focus is on mediations. For labor disputes, the NMB does not preside over grievances except for its administrative function in the railroad industry running the National Railroad Adjustment Board. For airline contracts like ours, grievances are processed through the parties’ negotiated process, such as the one we have detailed in our CBA Sections 16 and 17. However, by mutual agreement, the parties can choose to mediate the dispute. The NMB provides free grievance mediation services, but the parties may hire their own third-party mediator. We have tried mediating with the Company (both using NMB and hiring third-party mediators), and found such effort to be a waste of time. Why? To mediate, both sides must come to the table understanding the case, be prepared for compromise, and send a person with decision-making authority. Unfortunately, SWAPA continues to be the only party who studies the facts and data and shows up with the authorized decision-maker at the table.

 

That’s the RLA and the NMB at their most basic levels. Read Part 2: Arbitration Answers for a deeper look into the RLA process.