Senate+Passes+FAA+Bill+With+Anti-Union+Measure

=By Michael McAuliff= =Published by the Huffington Post= =2/6/12= = = = = =WASHINGTON -- The Senate passed a Federal Aviation Administration bill on Monday that includes an anti-union measure bitterly opposed by labor groups.= =The bill, which modernizes America's air traffic control system and funds the FAA through 2014, was fought over for four years, leading to a partial shutdown of the FAA last summer because of anti-union measures added by the Republican-controlled House.= =It passed 75 to 20, with a majority of Democrats backing it.= =Among the controversial provisions were changes to labor law for rail and airline workers -- backed by the airline industry -- that would count anyone who did not vote in an election for a union as voting against it, making it much more difficult to certify attempts to organize new unions.= =That measure was stripped in a conference committee to work out differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill, only to be replaced by another that raises the threshold for seeking a union from requiring 35 percent of workers' signatures to requiring half.= =Unions mounted a last minute push against the measure Monday, including sending out a letter signed by 19 labor groups hammering Democrats for giving into the House.= ="Rewarding the House Republican Leadership's desire to rewrite decades of long standing labor law in a flash by inserting an unrelated and controversial labor provision in a much needed aviation safety and security bill, without notice, hearing, or debate, sets an extremely dangerous precedent," says the letter, led by Communications Workers of America.= = = =Senators who voted for the bill, including Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, praised it as a good compromise and a vital step forward for the country's air traffic control system.= ="I happen to think it's a very, very good bill," Rockefeller said.= =A number of his Democratic colleagues, however, agreed with the unions, saying Congress was caving in to a few powerful airlines.= ="The only entity that [the old union vote system] apparently doesn't work for is the management of a few powerful airlines," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). "These powerful companies don't want workers to have representation. They don't want to engage in collective bargaining with their workers. They're deeply concerned, I guess, that at some point in the future they just might have to put a few additional dollars into middle class workers' pockets."= =While Harkin called the changes to labor law "less detrimental" than the original language, he was still among the senators to vote against the bill.= ="My vote is to stand up against the notion that a federal agency [the National Mediation Board] and the American workers it is charged to protect should be punished for doing what is right, what is fair, what is within their jurisdiction, and to stand up against a process that allows the few and the powerful to hijack this body, to change the rule of the game in their favor," Harkin said.= =The bill now goes to President Obama.= = = = = = = = = = = =News= =home=