Introduction
The National Mediation Board (NMB) is an autonomous U.S. government agency created by Congress through the Railway Labor Act amendments of 1934 (Orenic, 2009). A principal purpose of the Railway Labor Act was the promotion of peaceful settlement of labor disputes in the transportation industry so vital to the national welfare. Its functions have been categorized as predominantly ministerial; therefore, it cannot make decisions involving the interpretation of the act; these remain the sole authority of Congress. The NMB is comprised of three members, selected by the president, with Senate confirmation (Orenic, 2009). These members must be persons with no past labor or railroad affiliations and should have a different political affiliation. The tenure for each member is a single three-year stint, during which, each member serves as chairperson on an annual rotation (Orenic, 2009).
The board is authorized to appoint experts and assistants to act in any capacity necessary to effect transactions and can assign or assign any portion of its duties or functions to individual members or employees (Silverstein, 2011). It also has the authority to provide for salaries and expenditures necessary to complete the action. NMB oversees harmonious labor affairs in two of the United States’ main transportation industries; the airlines and the railways. It deals with the arbitration, negotiations, and workers’ representation disputes and offers administrative and monetary assistance in addressing grievances in the airline and railroad sectors (Silverstein, 2011). The board’s dispute-resolution approaches are intended to revolve around revising or creating new collective bargaining pacts and the construal of existing ones.
Roles of National Mediation Board
A key role played by the NMB is mediation. The Board provides various services to parties of a dispute subject to the Railway Labor Act. These services include mediation of disputes relating to the changing of existing agreements affecting rates of pay, rule, and/or working condition (Holley, Jennings & Wolters, 2011). In addition, the board is involved in the designation or certification of the representatives of a group or craft of employees, election monitoring, and interpretation of a contract made under its mediation program. The purpose of the NMB is to take the initiative that will avoid any interruption of interstate commerce, enforce the limitations of the freedom of choice or association by the employees of an air or rail carrier, and provide a means for the prompt and orderly settlement of disputes. When management and unions fail to resolve collective-bargaining disputes, either of them can prompt for the NMB’s intervention or the agency could step in on its initiative. Mediation efforts aim to help in reaching an agreement. Historically, in all the disputes NMB intervened in, the majority of them (approximately 97 percent) were effectively resolved without disruptions in public service. Over the last three decades, only about one percent of the disputes have escalated to involve interruption of service (Silverstein, 2011). The board is obliged to employ its unsurpassed efforts to come up with a peaceful conclusion of the disagreement (Silverstein, 2011). If the efforts fail to resolve the dispute, the board counsels the parties and proposes interest arbitration as a substitute method to resolve the pertinent matters. In case one or both party in dispute rejects the alternative dispute resolution approach, the NMB calls off the formal mediation efforts. This call-off initiates a one-month cooling-off period. Nevertheless, the NMB sustains the efforts to resolve the dispute with both parties within this timeframe. If the disagreement is not solved during this one month, the parties may adopt any legal self-help action, for instance, industrial action such as a strike or employer-imposed working conditions, as the party resolve.
Other than conventional mediation services, the board correspondingly offers Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods and dispute-prevention activities. ADR is an umbrella term embracing a wide range of methods to settle disputes between parties, including primary neutral evaluation, ombudsman programs, fact-finding, voluntary mediation, compelled mediation, mediation-arbitration, mini-trials, private judging, and judicial settlement conferences. Others include union-management arbitration, summary jury trials, non-binding arbitration, and final and binding arbitration (Holley, Jennings & Wolters, 2011). These services offered by the NMB include training, facilitation, education, grievance mediation, and an online dispute resolution program, which incorporates technology into the process of dispute resolution. The range of activities includes interest-based bargaining and facilitation, pre-dispute mediation, and grievance mediation among others (Breger, Schatz & Laufer, 2001). The purpose of ADR services is to help the parties in dispute to acquire and apply more effective, less hostile ways of solving their differences without the need for external intervention. Despite the absence of accurate data to show the number of disputes that have been settled through alternative dispute resolution, it is estimated that the NMB offers ADR services in over 250 mediation cases yearly.
If NMB views that a dispute could potentially disrupt vital transportation service to a part of or the whole state, it informs the president of the United States. The president may, if necessary, appoint a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) to probe and give its findings to him within one month (Kaps, 1997). The PEB maintains the status quo by provisionally halting an industrial action for up to two months and gives commendations for solving the disagreement. The law stipulates that once the PEB is appointed, and for another one month following the handing in of its report to the president, none of the parties embroiled in the dispute may result in self-help. There are also distinct emergency measures for addressing unsettled disputes affecting taxpayer-financed and government-operated commuter railroads and their workers. In case mediation actions are drained, the parties involved in the disagreement or the Governor of any state served by the railway services could appeal to the president to form a PEB. The head of state is obligated to form such a PEB if requested. If no resolution is found 60 days after the establishment of the PEB, NMB is mandated to hold a public inquiry into the dispute (Kaps, 1997). If the dispute has not been resolved in 120 days after the establishment of PEB, the parties in dispute or the Governor could appeal to the president to constitute another PEB to try and resolve the dispute. During this period, the parties cannot seek self-help actions till these stipulated emergency procedures and approaches are exhausted. Possible outcomes of the emergency board include presidential suggestive intervention, congressional enactment of legislation to address the issue, and parties’ result to self-help (Kaps, 1997).
The NMB is charged with the responsibility of achieving workers’ rights to self-organization wherever there is a dispute regarding workers’ representation. Its main representation-dispute accountabilities are to institute an initial inquiry into representation requests, identify and endorse workers’ collective bargaining reps, and make sure that the procedure is implemented free from external interference, intimidation, or pressure. The Railway Labor Act prohibits carrier interference in the selection of employee representatives (Breger, Schatz & Laufer, 2001). Resolution of disputes regarding representation encompasses identifying the workers’ representatives in the collective bargaining process and the appropriate bargaining unit, class or craft, of workers to be represented. It is NMB’s responsibility to determine the representation desires of the airline employees based on craft or class, rather than based on an overall industrial unit combining many occupations, which in some instances, could be preferred for various reasons by certain organizations and managements. When a union or individual worker lodges a request to represent workers, NMB dispatches an investigator to analyze the representation request. If the application meets set requirements, NMB progresses with the inquiry, in most cases, through a surreptitious phone or Internet poll (Silverstein, 2011). NMB is tasked with making sure that the provisions of a fair poll process are upheld. If the workers voted to be represented, NMB gives a certification that initiates the transporters’ legal duty to negotiate with the workers’ representative.
Another role of the National Mediation Board is arbitration. NMB offers both grievance-based and interest-based arbitrations. Grievance arbitration is a method of solving disputes concerning the construal or implementation of a bargaining agreement already in existence (Holley, Jennings & Wolters, 2011). A grievance is resolved via grievance arbitration process if it cannot be solved otherwise, and cannot be enlisted to prompt self-help measures. NMB has substantial administrative accountabilities for grievance adjudication in the railroad sector including those presented to National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB) for determination. It is also involved in the two categories of adjudication panels created by the labor relations administration parties at every railroad; the special boards of adjustments (SBAs) and public law boards (PLBs) (Kaps, 1997). Grievance adjudication in the carrier sector is achieved at the numerous system boards of adjustment established at the expense of the parties (Orenic, 2009). In railroad and airline sectors, the NMB provides boards of potential arbiters from which the parties select. NMB also reimburses and provides for the expenditures of the arbiters for railroad arbitrations. Grievance arbitration resolutions are absolute and obligatory with minimal provisions for legal redress. Interest arbitration is a procedure of determining the provisions of a new or revised collective bargaining pact through adjudication, instead of through negotiations. In contrast to grievance adjudication, its application is not legally mandatory. NMB gives the parties the chance to employ binding interest adjudication when it has realized that continued mediation activities will not be effective. Moreover, the parties can openly decide to settle their collective bargaining dispute by interest adjudication. NMB usually offers the boards of qualified arbiters from which the parties choose arbitrators to resolve their dispute. Nevertheless, at times the parties decide to let NMB independently assign an arbiter. Interest arbitration resolutions are absolute and obliging with minimal grounds for court redress.
NMB also plays a pivotal role in succession following company mergers. The board ensures that the workers’ representation and other rights are not violated after taking over by the new company. The NMB has yet to formulate a coherent policy on succession obligations or whether contracts can formulate the same. Unresolved issues include whether the merger has produced a single carrier. The practice of the NMB has been to extinguish certificates of the disappearing airline as soon as the merged company begins operating as a single carrier. When carriers are equivalent in size e.g. Federal Express/Flying Tigers or USAir/Piedmont, the NMB has held that certification remains in place pending an election (Orenic, 2009). The NMB will retain certifications for two more or less equal merging airlines until there is an election. In this case, there usually is a new election to determine the bargaining representative. In the new election, the unionized employees may lose their right to be represented by a union. The NMB apparently will extinguish union representation when a small airline is consolidated into a much larger one and ceases to exist. The employees may well be folded into the larger bargaining unit as an accretion to that craft (Breger, Schatz & Laufer, 2001). This can occur without any new election for those employees who were transferred over. This is particularly relevant if a small unionized carrier is folded into a large non-unionized airline.
Conclusion
The NMB is a powerful organ of the federal government that resolves labor disputes and ensures harmonious relations in the transport industries. The main purpose of the NMB is to implement measures and steps that will prevent any disruption of commerce between states, enforce the limitations of the freedom of choice or association by the employees of an air or rail carrier, and provide a means for the prompt and orderly settlement of disputes. It has many vital roles including the provision of several mediation services to parties of a dispute subject to the Railway Labor Act, determination, or certification of the representatives of a craft or class of workers, and election monitoring. In addition, it is involved in the interpretation of agreements made under its mediation program and providing voluntary Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services and dispute-prevention activities.
References
Breger, M. J., Schatz, G. S. and Laufer, D. S. (2001). Federal administrative dispute resolution deskbook. Chicago: ABA publishing.
Holley, W. H., Jennings, K. M. and Wolters, R. S. (2011). The labor relations process, 10th edition. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Kaps, R. W. (1997). Air transport labor relations. Chicago: Board of trustees, South Illinois University.
Orenic, L. M. (2009). On the ground: struggle in the American airline industry. Chicago: Board of trustees of the University of Illinois.
Silverstein, M. O. (2011). Introduction to international mediation and arbitration: resolving labor disputes in the United States and the European Union. American university labor & employment law forum 101.