The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railway and airline industries.. The Act, passed in 1926 and amended in 1936 to apply to the airline industry, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration and mediation for strikes as a means of resolving labor disputes.

Historical antecedents to the RLA

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After the national railroad strike of 1877, which was only put down with the intervention of federal troops, Congress passed the Arbitration Act of 1888, which authorized the creation of arbitration panels with the power to investigate the causes of labor disputes and to issue non-binding arbitration awards. The Act was a complete failure: only one panel was ever convened under the Act, and that one, in the case of the Pullman Strike, only issued its report after the strike had been crushed by a federal court injunction backed by federal troops.

Congress attempted to correct these shortcomings in the Erdman Act, passed in 1898. The Act likewise provided for voluntary arbitration, but made any award issued by the panel binding and enforceable in federal court. It also outlawed discrimination against employees for union activities, prohibited "yellow dog" contracts (employee agrees not to join a union while employed), and required both sides to maintain the status quo during any arbitration proceedings and for three months after an award was issued. The arbitration procedures were rarely used. A successor statute, the Newlands Act, passed in 1913 proved more effective, but was largely superseded when the federal government nationalized the railroads in 1917.

The Adamson Act, passed in 1916, provided workers with an eight hour day, at the same daily wage they had received previously for a ten hour day, and required time and a half for overtime. Another law passed in the same year gave President Wilson the power to "take possession of and assume control of any system of transportation" for transportation of troops and war materiel.

Wilson exercised that authority on December 26, 1917. The federal administrator of the railroad system issued an order protecting railroad workers' right to organize, while establishing a number of adjustment boards to settle employment disputes.

While Congress considered nationalizing the railroads on a permanent basis after World War I, the Wilson administration announced that it was returning the railroad system to its owners. Congress tried to preserve, on the other hand, the most successful features of the federal wartime administration, the adjustment boards, by creating a Railroad Labor Board with the power to issue non-binding proposals for the resolution of labor disputes, as part of the Transportation Act of 1920.

The RLB soon destroyed whatever moral authority its decisions might have had in a series of decisions. In 1921 it ordered a twelve percent reduction in employees' wages, which the railroads were quick to implement. The following year, when shop employees of the railroads launched a national strike, the RLB issued a declaration that purported to outlaw the strike; the Department of Justice then obtained an injunction that carried out that declaration. From that point forward railway unions refused to have anything to do with the RLB.

Passage and amendment of the RLA

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The RLA was the product of negotiations between the major railroad companies and the unions that represented their employees. Like its predecessors, it relied on boards of adjustment, established by the parties, to resolve labor disputes, with a government-appointed Board of Mediation to attempt to resolve those disputes that board of adjustment could not. The RLA promoted voluntary arbitration as the best method for resolving those disputes that the Board of Mediation could not settle.

Congress strengthened these procedures in the 1934 amendments to the Act, which also prohibited "yellow dog" contracts and created a procedure for resolving whether a union had the support of the majority of employees in a particular "craft or class", while turning the Board of Mediation into a permanent agency, the National Mediation Board, with broader powers.

Congress extended the RLA to cover airline employees in 1936. In 1951 Congress legalized the union shop, which the railway unions had opposed at the time of the original passage of the Act because of the prevalence of employer-dominated company unions at that time.

Bargaining and strikes under the RLA

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Unlike the National Labor Relations Act, which adopts a less interventionist approach to the way the parties conduct collective bargaining or resolve their disputes arising under collective bargaining agreements, the RLA specifies both (1) the negotiation and mediation procedures that unions and employers must exhaust before they may change the status quo, and (2) the methods for resolving "minor" disputes over the interpretation or application of collective bargaining agreements. The RLA permits strikes over major disputes only after the union has exhausted the RLA's negotiation and mediation procedures, while barring almost all strikes over minor disputes. The RLA also authorizes the courts to enjoin strikes if the union has not exhausted those procedures.

On the other hand, the RLA imposes fewer restrictions on the tactics that unions may use when they do have the right to strike. The RLA does not, unlike the NLRA, bar secondary boycotts against other RLA-regulated carriers; it may also permit employees to engage in other types of strikes, such as intermittent strikes, that might be unprotected under the NLRA.

"Major" and "Minor" Disputes

The RLA categorizes all labor disputes as either "major" disputes, which concern the making or modification of the collective bargaining agreement between the parties, or "minor" disputes, which involve the interpretation or application of collective bargaining agreements. Unions can strike over major disputes only after they have exhausted the RLA's "almost interminable" negotiation and mediation procedures. They cannot, on the other hand, strike over minor disputes, either during the arbitration procesdures or after an award is issued.

The federal courts have the power to enjoin a strike over a major dispute if the union has not exhausted the RLA's negotiation and mediation procedures. The Norris-LaGuardia Act dictates the procedures that the court must follow. Once the NMB releases the parties from mediation, however, they retain the power to engage in strikes or lockouts, even if they subsequently resume negotiations or the NMB offers mediation again.

The federal courts likewise have the power to enjoin a union from striking over arbitrable disputes. The court may, on the other hand, also require the employer to restore the status quo as a condition of any injunctive relief against a strike.

Discipline and replacement of strikers

Carriers can lawfully replace strikers engaged in a lawful strike, but may not, however, discharge them, except for misconduct, or eliminate their jobs to retaliate against them for striking. It is not clear whether the employer can discharge workers for striking before exhausting all of the RLA's bargaining and mediation processes.

The employer must also allow strikers to replace replacements hired on a temporary basis and permanent replacements who have not completed the training required before they can become active employees. The employer may, on the other hand, allow less senior employees who crossed the picket line to keep the jobs they were given after crossing the line, even if the seniority rules in effect before the strike would have required the employer to reassign their jobs to returning strikers.

Representation elections under the RLA

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The NMB has the responsibility for conducting elections when a union claims to represent a carrier's employees. The NMB defines the craft or class of employees eligible to vote, which almost always extends to all of the employees performing a particular job function throughout the company's operations, rather than just those at a particular site or in a particular region.

A union seeking to represent an unorganized group of employees must produce authorization cards or other proof of support from at least thirty-five percent of the craft or class. A party attempting to oust an incumbent union must produce evidence of support from a majority of the craft of class. The NMB must conduct an election; while an employer can lawfully recognize a union based on a showing of interest, the NMB cannot certify it.

The NMB usually uses mail ballots to conduct elections, unlike the National Labor Relations Board, which has historically preferred walk-in elections under the NLRA. Also in contrast to the NLRA, under the RLA a union must receive a majority of votes from the entire craft or class, rather than merely a majority of those who choose to vote. The NMB can order a rerun election if it determines that either an employer or union has interfered with employees' free choice.

Protecting employees' rights

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Unlike the NLRA, which gives the NLRB nearly exclusive power to enforce the Act, the RLA allows employees to sue in federal court to challenge an employer's violation of the Act. The courts can grant employees reinstatement and backpay, along with other forms of equitable relief.

External links

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• NMB website
• Critique of the RLA's election procedures
• Analysis of the RLA's bargaining requirements
• Text of the RLA

Further reading

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• Leslie, Douglas (editor), The Railway Labor Act, Washington, D.C., BNA Books 1995 ISBN 0871798158.

1926 in law | United States federal labor legislation | United States railroad regulation