Railway Labor Act (RLA)

Railway Labor Act Name: Tutor: Institution: Date: Railway Labor Act The Railway Labor Act commonly abbreviated by the acronym RLA is a federal legislation in the United States of America that governs labor policies in relation to the railroad and aviation industries (Twomey, 2010). The act, initially enacted in 1926 seeks to substitute bargaining, mediation and arbitration for strikes as a means of resolving labor related disputes. The provisions of the act originally enforced under the board of the mediation but were later changed and applied under the National Mediation Board. The act first amendment in 1934 created a procedure for resolving whether a union had the support of most employees while changing the board of the mediation which was temporal in nature into a more permanent agency, the National Mediation Board. In 1936, another amendment took place to extend the act to the aviation industry. Several recent Railway labor Act cases have shown that they are disputes which are neither major, based on the fact that they do not involve pay rates nor minor as they do not involve the interpretation of the agreement or contract. A classic example is the application by Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. New York Central Company under the RLA, held a dispute that was not in any way labor related and; therefore, the case was dismissed by the federal court. In addition, an injunction was placed to subject workers to refrain from striking. The judicial interpretations of the act in brief include, the act imposes a positive role upon all carriers and their employees based on written agreements. The relation between the employer and the employees are not administered by the arbitrary will or whim of the management, but by rules clearly written down and mutually agreed by the tw...