The Railway Labor Act specifically LIMITS the power of labor in the rail/airline industries to far less than what labor enjoys in most other industries. A few exmaples...

1. Airline contracts never expire, they become ammendable. If no new agreement is reached then the old agreement remains in full force unlike other industries where the contract is void and labor is free to engage in economic self help such as strikes or slowdowns.

2. Airline labor groups are prohibited from using self-help in support of a minor dispute (virtually any disagreement on the application of the contract). Labor's only available option is the greivance procedure where labor bears the burden of proof and the company is free to impliment their inturpretation of the disputed article until a resolution is reached. Greivances which proceed to arbitration frequently take two to three years from start to finish.

3. During contact negotiations both sides are bound to maintain status quo. This prohibits labor from using the threat of self help to encourage negotitions. If labor violates status quo it is treated as a major dispute and management can take labor to court demanding that they cease and desist and to collect damages (as happened a couple of years ago at AAL). In other industries labor is pretty much free to strike or slow down at any time during the process.

4. Before the parties can be released from status quo the National Mediation Board must assign a mediator to facilitate negotiations and that mediator must report to the NMB that further process is not possible. If the NMB agrees then they will declare an impasse and the parties are released into a 30-day cooling off period. It isn't until the end of that 30-day cooling off period that status quo is removed and either party is free to engage in economic self help (strike, slow-down, lockout, or imposed contractural terms).

5. When a strike/lockout does occur the President can order labor back to work (in the case of a strike), or order the end of a lock out, while a Presidention Emergency Board (PEB) reviews the dispute. At this point status quo is again imposed on both parties. The PEB will listen to both sides and will then recommend a settlement. If either side rejects the PEB's proposal then Congress has the option of imposing the settlement on the parties.

Other than the fact that the RLA does give labor the right to negotiate, I'm not sure where you think it's given too much power. Nearly every provision of the RLA acts to limit labor's power.