This Labor Day, Respect the Right to Join (or Not) a Union – Inside Sources

Labor Day was created to celebrate all the Americans who work to support their families. The least the government can do in return is to respect the rights those workers hold. Unfortunately, too many lawmakers are trying to erode those rights, using the twisted logic of  “it’s for their own good.”

Labor unions and their allies in Congress are pushing for legislation called the Faster Labor Contracts Act. The sponsors claim it is needed to prevent businesses from endlessly delaying workers’ efforts to form unions. The push has another motive: trying to get union contracts approved before workers change their minds.

The legislation is waiting in the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee.

The bill would create an arbitrary 120-day deadline for businesses to agree to a union contract after a workplace vote in which a majority of their workers backed unionization. If a deal isn’t reached, an arbitration panel can then impose a contract that workers must accept regardless of its terms.

Fans of the legislation say it is necessary to prevent management’s delaying tactics. Delays are not especially problematic or new. There are often many issues to resolve, and both sides need time to work out the details. A 2022 Bloomberg report found that in 53 percent of cases, first contracts took more than a year, with a median of 374 days. The report said that in 2009, a similar 52 percent of cases also took more than a year.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act is, tellingly, not written to address the worst delays. It sets a hard deadline for all negotiations. The longest delays occur mostly in professions that have low turnover. A delay in getting a contract, while perhaps annoying, is less likely to deter workers from seeking a union because they’re in it for the long haul.

A 2021 Bloomberg report said that the industries that take the longest are healthcare, social assistance, information technology, financial services and education. In those cases, the delays can last between 466 and 528 days. These are usually highly skilled jobs that often require certification. Registered nurses, for example, have an 18 percent turnover rate. For tech employees, it is 8 percent.

Conversely, professions with historically high turnover rates, such as retail trade, leisure and hospitality — clerks, waiters and waitresses, hotel maids, etc. — typically face shorter delays in getting union contracts, though the average is still about a year. In the retail industry, the worker turnover rate is about 60 percent. In the hotel industry, the rate is estimated at 70 percent to 80 percent, and in the restaurant industry turnover exceeds 100 percent. Under the Faster Labor Contracts Act, workers are more likely to join a workplace with union representation that no one working there voted for.

A 2023 fact sheet by the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank, stated that the Faster Labor Contracts Act was meant to ensure contracts are reached before workers switch jobs and move on. “In human terms, absent the shared experience that led to union recognition, the new workers may not identify as strongly with the new union,” EPI warned. This could lead to situations where employers ask federal regulators “to conduct a union decertification election by arguing that the union no longer represents the current workforce.”

In that scenario, regulators should consider holding a new vote on whether current workers want a union. While it would be legal for the earlier group’s vote to bind the new hires, it may not be fair because the new workers may have a different opinion. This needs to be resolved before the union is established. Federal law has long been stacked against workers who seek to decertify unions that don’t represent their interests because that decertification has to be done through the union itself. Unsurprisingly, many unions will oppose their own members in these situations.

If the workers are truly united in favor of a union, they will get one eventually. And if they aren’t united in favor of one, that wish should be respected, too. It should be the workers’ choice, after all.