One of the objectives of the National Labor Relations Act is to foster collective bargaining and productive labor-management relations. As the agency established to that governs relationships between unions and private sector employers, when the NLRB was founded in 1934, it appeared to have purpose. One of those purposes is to enforce the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively with their employers.
The Act states that non-union employees and employees who join, support or assist unions may not be discriminated against by either employers or by unions. It also protects non-union groups of two or more employees who attempt, even without a union, to bargain with their employer over wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Both employers and workers have benefited from this Act.
However, bickering continues while US aviation workers suffer. Aviation management, aircraft managers, managed aircraft providers, Gulfstream Pilots all are suffering from lack of work. Congress and labor leaders seem only concerned for themselves while U.S. workers suffer continued layoffs and loss of jobs to other countries with fewer labor laws and rules. There seems to be no consensus on obtaining a competitive position for U.S. workers against our global competition. No one is asking the question: How may the US worker regain the leadership role we once had?
Foreign aviation competition to US aviation manufacturers is destroying the leadership role aviation manufacturers once enjoyed. The competitive labor advantage foreign aircraft manufactures enjoy is reduced labor cost, benefits and work rules.
Appointments to the NLRB are political and favor the majority party in power and Presidents appoint NLRB members based on ideology.
What may the partisan politics mean to our future? If the NLRB is cloaking their rulings in the name of improving worker conditions and implementing fairness, the rulings mean an anti-competitive environment for U.S. workers to maintain a standard of living that will diminish without having availability of employment. Yes the jobs will continue to drift to overseas markets placing the U.S. in a non-competitive position leaving many citizens out of work in the name of labor votes.
An example of where the NLRB overreached was when it challenged the right of Boeing to open a plant in South Carolina (claiming the development of a nonunion plant was retaliation for other union activities.). While the NLRB recently dropped the challenge, if it had stood,it would have been another example of the government meddling in private business and possibly driven more aviation jobs overseas where the NLRB has no jurisdiction.