Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, introduced a labor reform bill March 4 together with Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey that aims to speed up first contracts for new unions.
Hawley and Booker’s Faster Labor Contracts Act is cosponsored by Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). It’s a proposal lifted directly out of the PRO Act and its predecessor bill the Employee Free Choice Act.
The way it would work is that a first union contract would be decided by binding arbitration if a union and employer can’t come to an agreement on their own. After workers unionize, the employer would have to meet and begin bargaining within 10 days of a union request. After 90 days of bargaining, either party could request mediation from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). And if mediation fails after 30 days, the contract would be decided by a 3-person arbitration panel with each side picking an arbitrator and a third decided on jointly or picked by the FMCS. The panel would write and impose a collective bargaining agreement that would be binding for two years. Panelists would consider the employer’s financial status and prospects; the size and type of the employer’s operations and business; the employees’ cost of living; the employees’ ability to sustain themselves, their families, and their dependents on the wages and benefits they earn from their employer; and the wages and benefits other employers in the same business provide their employees.
“The status quo hurts workers,” Hawley said in a press release announcing the legislation. “Despite exercising their legal — and moral — right to bargain collectively, workers are often prevented from enjoying the benefits of the union they voted to form when mega-corporations drag their feet, slow-walk contract negotiations, and try to erode support for the union.”
“Senator Hawley and I will do all we can to advance this common-sense reform to benefit workers nationwide,” said Senator Merkley in the statement.
The Teamsters union announced the same day that it supports the bill.
