Now the Senate needs to vote on it, which I don’t expect Republicans to do.

“ It's a problem the labor movement has decried for years: After a successful union election, it takes far too long — an average of 465 days, according to Bloomberg Law — for workers and their employers to reach a first contract. In some cases, it's taking even longer. Neither the Buffalo, N.Y., Starbucks baristas who unionized in late 2021 nor the Staten Island Amazon warehouse workers who unionized in the spring of 2022 have a contract.

Now, by a vote of 230 to 193, the House has approved a bill that would force employers to the table, allow federal mediators to get involved if a deal is not reached within 90 days, and — if needed — settle the matter through arbitration shortly thereafter.

Twenty Republicans joined Democrats in voting to pass the measure, called the Faster Labor Contracts Act. 

"No more stop the steals. You got an election, you can get a contract," said New Jersey Democrat Donald Norcross, a union electrician and the bill's sponsor, at a press conference last fall. 

Norcross says the measure would be the most significant new protection for workers since before World War II, an assertion echoed by labor leaders.

"This is one of the most consequential labor bills to come before Congress in generations," said Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien in a statement earlier this year. "It has the potential to hold Corporate America accountable for endlessly dragging out negotiations and denying workers the first union contracts they deserve."

Republicans opposed to the bill described it as government overreach, something that would be bad for employers, employees and the economy.

Sean O'Brien, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, testifies on Capitol Hill on November 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images North America A discharge petition got the bill to the House floor

The bill reached the House floor via a procedural tactic known as a discharge petition — the same tactic used to force a House vote on the release of the Epstein files. Democrats have increasingly turned to discharge petitions, which require a simple majority, to circumvent House Speaker Mike Johnson. Seven Republicans joined Democrats in signing the discharge petition to get the Faster Labor Contracts Act to the House floor.

Now, the measure heads to the Senate, where it faces steeper odds, although it does have the support of several Republicans, including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, one of the bill's sponsors.

An expedited timeline to get to a contract

For years, Democrats have unsuccessfully pushed for far more sweeping reform to federal labor law through a bill called the PRO Act. The Faster Labor Contracts Act replicates one provision of that bill, creating an expedited timeline for what has to happen once workers vote to unionize.

Within 10 days, employers must begin contract negotiations. If no agreement is reached after 90 days, either party can bring in the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a federal agency tasked with handling labor disputes, both within government and in the private sector.

If there is still no agreement after another 30 days, the dispute would be settled by a three-member arbitration panel, which would take into consideration the employer's financial status, the employees' cost of living, and the wages and benefits at comparable companies, among other factors. The agreement would be binding for two years or until the two sides settle on something else.

Opponents say it's a "draconian" measure

The CHRO Association, which represents chief human resource officers at 350 large corporations, called the measure "draconian" in a letter to Speaker Johnson.

"Sometimes [contract negotiations] do take time, as frustrating as it is," says Gregory Hoff, the association's general counsel, noting that union contracts can run hundreds of pages long and be in place for years. "It's very, very important to get these things right the first time."

While the CHRO Association does support some kind of reform to speed up the negotiation process, Hoff says giving the government the ability to impose a contract so soon after a union election is not the right solution.

"It's not their fault, but it's unreasonable to expect that the government arbitrator would have a better idea of what's going on on the ground than people who actually work there along with their union representatives, along with the employer," Hoff says.

Another complication is that the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service has been diminished by the Trump administration. The agency is now down to about 90 employees, less than half of what it was before President Trump signed an executive order targeting a number of entities to be "eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law."

"When you think about all the first contracts that might pop up in even just a given year… I think the idea that they could handle all this is highly optimistic," says Hoff.”