pilot union

November 24: National Opt Out Day

by Michelle Minton on November 12, 2010 · 3 comments

in Mobility, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation

OptOutDay.com the website and group is urging air-travelers on November 24 (one of the busiest travel days of the year) to refuse to submit to a full body scan. Described byWonkette as “Child Porn Airport Death Machines,” they can choose the “enhanced” pat-down option, described by others as public molestation. National Opt Out Day, created by “ordinary citizen” Brian Sodegren, is one of many groups pushing for action against the new backscatter full-body imaging machines that produce naked images of passengers and have questionable effects on health.

Dave Bates, president of the Allied Pilots Association, urged pilots to decline the scan, saying, “It is important to note that there are “backscatter” AIT devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health.”

It isn’t an easy choice, though. The enhanced pat-down, which includes a rigorous examination of the genitals and other parts of the body, has resulted in horror stories, including anaccount from a rape survivor who said the experience was like reliving her assault again. And it seems that this very publicly traumatic experience is meant to be horrifying in order to “encourage” passengers to choose the machines. Why? Because as the pat-down does not include a cavity search, it is little more than “security theater,” contributing nothing to the security of a flight. It certainly wouldn’t deter a motivated terrorist from sneaking a weapon onto a plane.

When Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic confronted a TSA agent with this question the agent admitted that the point of the enhanced pat-down was to scare people into the machines.

What about people who hide weapons in their cavities? I asked….”We’re just not going there,” he reiterated.

I asked him if he was looking forward to conducting the full-on pat-downs. “Nobody’s going to do it,” he said, “once they find out that we’re going to do.”

In other words, people, when faced with a choice, will inevitably choose the Dick-Measuring Device over molestation? “That’s what we’re hoping for. We’re trying to get everyone into the machine.”

“The effectiveness of pat-downs does not matter very much, because the obvious goal of the TSA is to make the pat-down embarrassing enough for the average passenger that the vast majority of people will choose high-tech humiliation over the low-tech ball check.

As Goldberg and others have suggested, perhaps the TSA ought to focus on enhanced background checks rather than finding new ways to humiliate and violate innocent travelers. Perhaps the TSA should allow airlines the option to opt-out of using the backscatter machines and let passengers vote with their dollars whether or not security is worth this loss of dignity and personal privacy. Perhaps the federal government should revisit its decision to create the TSA in the first place, when it nationalized airport security in the wake of 9/11.

While many people opt-out on the 24th and for as long as the backscatter machines remain in use, many more will opt-out of flying all together. Fewer fliers means less money for airlines and less money to spend on repairing planes and conducting real security checks. Personally, I’m far more worried about the wings falling off of my plane than a terrorist with a pair of scissors.

In addition to a loss of revenue, fewer fliers means more drivers on the road and likely more accidents. All of this leads me to wonder whether these new security measures have made us a safer freer society?

Personally, I’m going to opt-out of the scanner every time I fly and I don’t plan on taking my molestation/pat-down quietly.

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Change the Rules.

by Ivan Osorio on November 2, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Labor, Regulation

From attempting to manipulate the definition of “supervisor” to changing the way in which workers are organized, the above seems to be a guiding principle in organized labor’s bold new approach to increasing union membership. Consistent with that, some union friendly government officials are trying to change the way in which votes for some workers are counted.

Today, as The Wall Street Journal reports, National Mediation Board chair Elizabeth Dougherty wrote to more than a dozen Republican senators, protesting her colleagues’ proposed rule change (sent to the Federal Register on October 29) that would change the way in which votes are counted in organizing elections under the Railway Labor Act (RLA).

Under a 75-year-old interpretation of the Railway Labor Act, any employees who don’t vote on whether to create a union are counted as “no” votes. That means a union can’t be approved without a full majority of all employees voting in favor of it.

Under the National Labor Relations Act governing other industries, a union can be created as long as a majority of all votes cast are in favor of collective bargaining. In such elections, nonvotes don’t count either way.

Earlier this year, the White House named Linda Puchala, a former leader of a flight-attendant union, to the NMB to succeed Read Van de Water, a former lobbyist for Northwest Airlines. Harry Hoglander, a board member since 2002, is a former union leader for pilots.

Ms. Dougherty joined the NMB’s board in 2006. A registered Republican, she served as a labor adviser to Mr. Bush earlier this decade.

In September, the AFL-CIO union formally asked the NMB to adopt the same voting rules as the National Labor Relations Act, arguing that the unionization-election process under the Railway Labor Act is undemocratic.

In its proposal published Monday, the NMB agreed, saying that “few if any” democratic elections treat nonvotes as “no votes.” Allowing a contrary policy, as under the current NMB union-voting rules, “could allow those lacking the interest or will to vote to supersede the wishes of those who do take the time and trouble to cast ballots,” the agency added.

Opponents of the overhaul say the higher bar for unionization was set up to protect interstate commerce from disruption. They also argue the law hasn’t hindered unionization: Roughly two-thirds of airline employees and more than three-quarters of railroad workers are organized, according to industry estimates, far higher than the 12% rate across the entire U.S. economy.

That’s a major change, but the unions are not about to stop there in their efforts in this area. The Teamsters, in cooperation with UPS, are trying to move employees of FedEx — UPS’ competitor and a Teamsters organizing target — out from being regulated under the RLA to jurisdiction under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Unlike the NLRA, the Railway Labor Act requires unionization to be carried out company-wide. This prevents the creation of balkanized work rules that could result from piecemeal unionization at individual facilities. UPS began as a ground transport company, so most of its employees are covered under the NLRA.

However, the Teamsters are UPS have pursued that change through the legislative process. Now some union allies are pursuing a similar change through the regulatory process. When it comes to changing the organizing rules, Big Labor seems more likely to keep persisting.

For more on the RLA, see here.