The RLA has been around since since 1926. There are PLENTY of Dem administrations that could have changed it, had it been their desire to do so. The theory is that railroads (and airlines) are too essential and/or too big to be allowed to fail. The only leverage anyone has to force change is to create a situation where the RLA is a demonstrable failure. At that point, it becomes in the NMB’s interest to increase the pressure on the management side, since squeezing the labor side is just making it disappear.