A bill introduced by U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) aimed at speeding up the process of reaching a first contract between newly unionized workers and employers is being criticized by a national labor expert who warns the bill is a dangerous expansion of compulsory unionism and government power over private businesses.
Earlier this year, Hawley introduced the Faster Labor Contracts Act, filed as S.844.
Under the bill, once a union formally requests to begin negotiations, the employer is required to meet and start bargaining within 10 days. If the two sides are unable to reach an agreement within 90 days of beginning talks, either party can request federal mediation through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
If mediation fails to produce a contract within an additional 30 days, the dispute is then sent to binding arbitration. A three-person arbitration panel, composed of one representative selected by the union, one by the employer, and a neutral third member, will review the situation and impose a contract that is legally binding for a period of two years.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee, warned that Hawley’s bill would dramatically expand federal power over private businesses by allowing government-appointed arbitrators to impose binding union contracts, effectively sidelining both employers and workers in the negotiation process.
Mix argued that although Hawley is a Republican, his Faster Labor Contracts Act adopts elements of the Democrat-backed Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which sought to repeal right-to-work laws and strengthen union power.
“Hawley…is in favor of [the PRO Act] and wants to give union officials more power, so he took pieces of [PRO Act] and introduced pieces of the bill. He introduced his first piece of the bill as Senate Bill 844,” Mix said on The John Fredericks Show.
“Under Hawley’s bill, the federal government would impose a worker’s contract on a small business or a big business, whatever it is, for two years. It doesn’t have anything to do with what the union wants, what the employees want, what the employer wants. The federal government would come and say, ‘Here are the conditions your employees are going to work under for the next two years.’ That’s outrageous, and it’s a dramatic expansion of forced unionism and union power over workers in America,” Mix added.
Mix suggested that Hawley is trying to appeal to union voters who supported President Donald Trump, but doing so by empowering union officials, not workers.
“Private sector union members voted overwhelmingly in favor of Donald Trump, so the Republican geniuses said, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re getting the workers’ votes, how do we maintain that? How do we capture it? How do we keep it?’ And Josh Hawley’s suggestion is give union officials more power and we’ll keep the workers in our ‘coalition.’ Donald Trump didn’t run on increasing forced unionism. He didn’t run on increasing federal involvement in private sector labor relations. He ran on basic common sense issues that attracted a majority of Americans,” Mix said.
“But Hawley’s solution is we’ll make this stick by doing labor law reform that gives union officials more power over workers. It’s really ridiculous,” Mix added
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Senator Josh Hawley” by Senator Josh Hawley.
Editor’s Note: John Fredericks is the Publisher of The Virginia Star.
