Phil Wilson on Why the Faster Labor Contracts Act Gets It Wrong
As quoted in a recent SHRM article, Labor Reform Bill Seeks to Shorten Contract Negotiations, Phil Wilson, LRI’s CEO and General Counsel, provided his insights on why the Faster Labor Contracts Act gets the problem wrong.
Employers will want to take note of these highlights:
Concerns about bargaining time can be legitimate
The proposed remedy is not. “Mandatory arbitration doesn’t get workers a better deal faster — it replaces bargaining with a government-imposed contract that workers themselves never get to approve.”
The bill rewards bad-faith bargaining
A union that holds firm and runs out the 90-day clock gets a government arbitrator who looks at the most aggressive comparable contracts in the industry. “The employer wouldn’t be able to walk away from terms it could not afford.”
Mandatory arbitration requirement provides no appeal
Arbitrators could force newly organized employers into underfunded multiemployer pension plans with no exit, potentially bankrupting the company. Employees have no voice as they never get a chance to have a ratification vote.
The long game is the more durable concern
“This proposal has now been introduced in three consecutive Congresses, each time with broader co-sponsorship and more effective framing. Republicans are increasingly looking at vehicles like this as ways to prove their populist bona fides. Once you head into the presidential primaries, a number of contenders, on both sides of the aisle, could use this as a way to prove their alignment with organized labor.”
Read the full article on SHRM (membership required): Labor Reform Bill Seeks to Shorten Contract Negotiations
