Ever wonder if elections make a difference? Wonder no more and fly Union.

After President Obama took office last year, he took control of the National Mediation Board (NMB), naming an appointee with a commitment to fairness in the workplace. And this week the NMB issued new voting procedures that will make it easier for hundreds of thousands of workers in the airline industry to unionize. The new guidelines will cover flight attendants at Delta and passenger service agents at Piedmont, American Airlines and American Eagle all of whom are wishing to join a voice on the job through CWA.
 
The guidelines state that the majority of workers who actually vote in union elections will decide the election and the NMB will stop assigning "no" votes to workers who do not participate in the election. "Throughout this country, from school boards to the United States Congress, a majority of those casting ballots determine election outcomes," said Patricia Friend, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. "And for the first time in recent history, elections conducted by the NMB will be held to the standards and principles that our country was founded upon."

Friend called the historic change "a new era of democracy."

"For far too long, flight attendants and other aviation and railway employees have faced significant obstacles in their quest for collective bargaining rights," she said. "Outdated and unreliable voting procedures have fostered a unique culture of voter suppression as companies understand that impeding union organizing merely requires preventing employees from voting. Employers and their outside union-busting companies engaged in the most undemocratic of practices by openly encouraging workers to destroy ballots and to not vote. Those days are now over."

The change came after AFA-CWA, CWA and our allies urged members of Congress to support the new rule. In all, 39 senators, 179 Democratic House members and 13 Republican House members wrote letters of support. They were joined by the Center for American Progress, American Rights at Work, national, state and local unions and numerous others.