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Dive brief:
- The House of Representatives approved this Tuesday Faster Employment Contracts Acta bill that would speed up negotiations between employers and workers who have voted to form or join a union.
- The outcome of the bill — should it become law — would create deadlines for specific negotiations and resources for workers to resolve disputes, tipping the scales in favor of unions and other labor organizers. A contractors trade group called the potential law an “embarrassment.”
- When workers vote for labor representation, the resulting bargaining can be prolonged. The bill cites a 2021 Bloomberg Law study that found it took an average of 465 days between voting and final approval of the contract.
Diving knowledge:
If the Faster Labor Contracts Act were to pass the Senate and be signed into law, employers would have 10 days to begin contract negotiations after the workers’ vote.
After 90 days without an agreement, either party can contact the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, an agency that handles labor disputes. After another 30 days, a three-member arbitration panel would intervene.
Although it has not yet been enacted, employers should pay attention to the implications of this law, said Trent Cotney, partner and construction team leader at the law firm Adams and Reese.
“Labor rates and the terms of a collective bargaining agreement directly affect the price and schedule of the project, among other things,” Cotney told Construction Dive. “Therefore, the FLCA’s accelerated timelines should be a concern for the industry.”
Builders and associated contractors denounced the FLCA as a “disgrace” and criticized the 20 Republicans who broke party lines with Democrats in passing the bill.
ABC CEO and President Mike Bellaman said the bill would destroy “voluntary agreement and good faith negotiations between labor and management” and put contracts in the hands of the government, rather than private parties.
“The FLCA imposes arbitrary and unrealistic deadlines on employers to complete negotiations with newly elected unions or face ‘binding first-contract interest arbitration,'” Bellaman said. “In practice, this means, for the first time in U.S. history, a federal government bureaucrat will appoint a person to dictate exactly what is included in a contract between two private negotiating parties.”
He called on the Senate and President Donald Trump to reject the legislation.
Meanwhile, Daniel Hogan, CEO of The Association of Union Constructors, praised the bill in a statement shared with Construction Dive.
“TAUC applauds the bipartisan passage of the Faster Labor Contracts Act,” Hogan said. “Strong labor-management relationships are the foundation of building unions, and our industry delivers its best results when both sides come to the table and work toward practical solutions.”
