House/Senate Conference to Decide Express Carrier Issue
The House version of legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (H.R. 1586, the “Aviation Safety and Investment Act of 2010”) contains a provision that would amend the Railway Labor Act1 to require that most express carrier employees be covered under the National Labor Relations Act, instead of the RLA.
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The Senate version of H.R. 1586 does not contain the express carrier provision.
Conference Committee Will Decide Express Carrier Classification
The bill has been passed by both the House and Senate, and a conference committee is working to resolve the differences between the two versions of the legislation.
(The express carrier provision is opposed by FedEx because it believes it would improperly remove most of its employees from the jurisdiction of the RLA. The provision is supported by UPS, which believes that express drivers performing the same services should be governed by the same law. (UPS drivers are under the jurisdiction of the NLRA, not the RLA.))
RLA Amendments Would Limit it Scope to FAA-Licensed Employees
H.R. 1586 would amend the RLA to state that only certain specified express carrier employees would be covered by the RLA. The bill would require that all other express carrier employees be covered under the NLRA. The employees that would continue to be covered by the RLA would be limited to FAA-licensed employees (pilots, aircraft maintenance technicians, aircraft dispatchers, etc.). If enacted, the bill would require express carrier drivers to be covered under the NLRA.
Definition of express carrier. The bill would define express carrier as any person whose primary business is the express shipment of freight or packages through an integrated network of air and surface transportation.
1The RLA was originally passed to govern railroad labor negotiations. The law has since been expanded to include airline and express carrier networks with integrated delivery systems.
Text of H.R. 1586 as passed by the House is available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c111:./temp/c111rX7XLL.