Alaska Employment Law

NLRB v. Katz, 369 US 736 (1962), says that an employer may not unilaterally alter working conditions once it starts bargaining for the initial CBA.  Do employers governed by the Railway Labor Act have the same duty?  The 9th Circuit this morning says, No. 

This appeal presents the question whether section 2, First of the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. § 152 First, read in conjunction with other provisions of the RLA, imposes a status quo requirement prohibiting carriers from unilaterally altering terms or conditions of employment once negotiations toward an initial collective bargaining agreement have begun, but before the agreement has been completed. Following the Supreme Court’s holding in Williams v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., we hold that it does not. 315 U.S. 386, 402-03 (1942).

The reason for the difference?

the NLRA provides for an administrative agency, the National Labor Relations Board, to issue judicially-enforceable orders, whereas the RLA creates no such agency, . . . it was therefore “doubtful that Congress intended the federal courts to operate [under the RLA] as the NLRB does under the . . . NLRA.” Therefore, we decline[] to read section 2, First as incorporating a standard for granting an injunction analogous to the standard under the NLRA for enforcing an employer’s duty to bargain in good faith.

(Citations omitted.)

In footnote 8 on page 2181, the Court leaves open the possibility that a union could obtain injunctive relief under RLA section 2, First’s requirement that an employer “exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements.” 

IBT v. North American Airlines, 2008 WL _______ (9th Cir. Mar. 7, 2008)