UPDATE: Both the House and Senate adjourned this afternoon without taking action on the FAA bill, ensuring a midnight shutdown. Senate Republicans blocked a move for a temporary extension of the agency’s funding.

At midnight tonight, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is slated to run out of money and be forced to suspend vital operations because House Republicans want to deny aviation and rail workers a simple majority vote—the same process that applies to electing lawmakers—on whether to join a union.

Republicans are holding a temporary funding bill hostage because they want to overturn a new rule adopted last year by the National Mediation Board (NMB) that says air and rail elections should be decided by a majority of votes cast. Previously under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which covers rail and airline workers, each worker who did not cast a vote in a representation election was automatically counted as a “No” vote.

Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department (TTD), says:

Republican leaders are doing the bidding of a few airline CEOs who refuse to allow this bill to move forward unless it eviscerates fair union election rules. No wonder the public is growing weary of the majority leaders in the House and their tactics.

If new funding isn’t approved, air traffic controllers would remain on the job, but the agency’s other 32,000 workers, including safety inspectors and other vital workers, face furloughs. Says FAA Administrator Randy Babbit:

We are going to be forced to furlough valuable FAA employees unless this situation is resolved quickly. These employees do everything from getting money out the door for airport construction projects, to airport safety planning and NextGen [air traffic control] research. We need them at work.

National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Paul Rinaldi says there will be “an array of extraordinarily negative consequences” if funding is allowed to expire. Along with air traffic controllers, Rinaldi says:

NATCA also represents many of the estimated 4,000 FAA employees who would be furloughed. They are employees who perform key safety functions like engineers and architects and FAA airports division personnel.

Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) President Veda Shook called the Republicans’ action “shameful.”

Funding the FAA means funding safe air travel for millions of passengers each day. Holding up this essential legislation in order to rob aviation workers of democracy and fair elections is shameful.

Tom Brantley, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), says:

Holding FAA safety programs hostage by insisting that controversial provisions be addressed at the 11th hour is not fair to the employees who face furloughs at midnight on Friday, and it is certainly not fair to the American flying public.