There is no dispute as to a
whether “a newly-certified union has full bargaining rights with respect to covered employees without regard to whether the employees have previously been covered by a collective bargaining agreement.” of course they do. But saying a newly-certified has full bargaining right it not saying they can open up section 6 negotiations when the company is not in agreement and before a contract is amendable. Those are 2 completely different things.
There is also no disputing the NMB is clear on this
Certification
A process under the RLA by which the NMB grants a union (or individual) sole bargaining rights over a specific group of employees.
http://www.leagle.co...LWAR2-1986-2006
A relevant starting point for this analysis is the well-established principle that a mere change of representatives does not alter otherwise applicable contractual agreements. This has been the policy of the Board since its inception in 1934:When there is an agreement in effect between a carrier and its employees signed by one set of representatives and the employees choose new representatives who are certified by the Board, the Board has taken the position that a change in representation does not alter or cancel any existing agreement made in behalf of the employees by their previous representatives.
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL MEDIATION BOARD 23-24 (1935). The Board has reasoned that "[t]he purpose of such a policy is to emphasize a principle of the Railway Labor Act that agreements are between the employees and the carrier, and that the change of an employee representative does not automatically change the contents of an agreement." FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NATIONAL MEDIATION BOARD 39 (1976).
Although we are not bound by the Board's policy statements on contractual issues, they carry significant weight when, as here, the operative principle has been endorsed by federal courts. See International Ass'n of Machinists v. Northwest Airlines, Inc.,843 F.2d 1119, 1123 n. 5 (8th Cir.), vacated as moot,854 F.2d 1088 (8th Cir. 1988); International Bhd. of Teamsters v. Texas Int'l Airlines, Inc.,717 F.2d 157, 163 (5th Cir.1983) ["Texas International"]. Thus, AFA's insistence that the Eastern-TWU agreement necessarily ceased to be the status quo when AFA succeeded TWU as the certified representative of Shuttle flight attendants is undercut by precedent holding that contractual agreements generally survive a change in representative. Moreover, as an intuitive matter, there is good reason to apply the foregoing policy in this instance. If, in the typical case where employees choose a new representative, the law nonetheless indulges the presumption that the employees were satisfied with their existing bargaining agreement and wish it to remain in force, it makes no sense to stray from that presumption in cases,
such as this one, where the employees have not voted out their representative, but have had a new one imposed on them
