EMPLOYEE UNIONIZATION IN AVIATION

Since the mid-1990s, labor-management relations in the airline industry have been rocky at best. From the acrimonious and disruptive pilots strike at American Airlines to the current problems at both United Airlines and Delta Airlines, labor-management relations in the airline industry have proved to be damaging to airline firms, their workers, their customers, their stockholders, and to the nation generally (Zuckerman, 2000).

Generally speaking, airline management teams have been hostile to both the concept of unionization among industry employee groups and to specific labor unions that already represent employee groups either within the industry and at specific airline firms (Brannigan, 2000). The argument presented herein, however, holds that the prevailing position of most airline management teams is detrimental to the interests of the airline companies and that the airlines, their workers, their customers, their stockholders, and the nation generally would be better served through the implementation of policies by airline management teams that fostered unionization among airline industry employees.

The airline companies are private enterprises (owned by their shareholders, who, in the instances of United Airlines, are also employees of the airline) functioning within a capitalist economic system (from which the resources required to operate the airline companies are obtain

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ht to choose their collective-bargaining representative by majority vote, and required employer recognition and good-faith bargaining. Though the Taft-Hartley amendments of a dozen years later guaranteed the right not to organize as well, workers still have that basic legal right to unionization, if they choose to exercise it. The Taft-Hartley Act imposed new restrictions on organized labor in the areas of (1) practices, (2) internal administration, (3) collective bargaining procedures, and (4) strike actions deemed harmful to the health and safety of the nation (Mangum & Mangum, 1993). Labor unions gain the right to represent workers employed by specific firms through the process of certification. Certification is the formal declaration by a government labor relations board that a specific labor union is the recognized bargaining agent for a specific group of workers at a specific employing firm. This formal certification is typically made following the conduct of a certification election that is supervised by the NLRB (Pleasure, 2000). Decertification is provided for under labor union law in the United States, and the process has gained considerable ground in the nation since 1970 as a result of the availability of lower-w
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Walters Langdon, United Airlines, NLRB Pleasure, Delta Airlines, Mangum Mangum, Airline Industry, Relations Act, Taft-Hartley Act, Board NLRB, Law Review, labor unions, airline management teams, airline management, airline industry, management teams, collective bargaining, labor relations, airline companies, management labor, labor union, job security, national labor relations, labor relations act, collective bargaining process, regionals handle labor,
Approximate Word count = 1803
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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