The Federal Register out today announces:

The National Mediation Board overhauled a decades-old election rule to make it easier for airline and railway employees to unionize, in a sign that labor is getting a more favorable hearing at the federal agency under the Obama administration.

The rule change, which was published online Monday in the Federal Register, has been opposed by the airline and rail industries and could still face legal challenges. More than 570,000 workers are employed by railroads and airlines, more than two-thirds of whom already are unionized.

  The change?

Under an interpretation of the Railway Labor Act dating to 1934, aviation and rail workers who don’t vote on whether to form a union have been counted as "no” votes. That means a union could not be approved without a full majority of employees voting yes.

Under the National Labor Relations Act governing other industries, a union can be created if a majority of all votes cast are in favor of collective bargaining. In such elections, nonvotes don’t count.

The rule change by the NMB mandates that unionization votes for air and rail workers be tallied in the same manner as in other industries.

  How did this happen? The swing vote on the panel went from being held by a former lobbyist for Northwest to an Obama appointed former flight attendant. I, and others, have been rightly critical of the Administration’s pandering to the "free market". But, this is an instance where a shift of one vote inside an agency could mean a lot to tens of thousands of workers.