On June 9, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA), a concept long supported by organized labor. The FLCA would amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) for the first time in over 50 years and require mandatory arbitration to settle an initial agreement in bargaining for a newly formed union. The employer will have only 10 days to begin bargaining with such a new union, and 90 days to reach an agreement with that union. Thereafter, either the employer or the union may notify the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service (FMCS) to request arbitration of the dispute. If the FMCS cannot bring the parties to an agreement after 30 days, it would refer the dispute to a three-person arbitration panel. The panel would include one member selected by labor, one by the employer, and one neutral, mutually agreed upon, all selected within 14 days of the referral to arbitration. The majority of the arbitration panel would settle the contract with a decision that would be binding for two years. The decision would be based on certain statutory factors such as the employer’s financial status, the size and type of the employer’s operations, employees’ cost of living, employees’ ability to sustain themselves with wages and benefits they earn, and wages and benefits other employers in the same industry provide their employees.
The purpose of this new bill is to guarantee an initial labor contract for a newly-formed union. Data shows that unions took an average of 429 days after certification to ratify their first contract between 2005 and 2023, as there are no deadlines under current law regarding a first contract. In about half of the situations, an agreed-upon contract is never reached. Unions claim that employers engage in tough bargaining in an initial contract to avoid a union. The bill would thus guarantee the union a first contract.
The vote in the House was 230-195 in favor of the bill, with 20 Republicans joining 210 Democrats in supporting the bill. The bill still must pass the Senate, where Republican Senator Josh Hawley, R.-Mo., has joined Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., to introduce their version of the bill. At least two other Republican senators have indicated some support for this measure.
If the bill is to be defeated in the Senate, there must be significant opposition from the employer community. There are several arguments against the bill that union members themselves would recognize. For example, the bill takes away the rights of union members to ratify a collective bargaining agreement, and the right to strike to seek better terms in the collective bargaining agreement. The bill in essence turns over the determination of the new labor agreement to a third party arbitrator, who may know nothing about the industry. Further, the bargaining that occurs prior to the arbitration may be based more on influencing the arbitrator than in reaching an agreement on a contract. There are no guidelines in the bill as to how long the arbitration will take.
Editor’s Note: These type arrangements are common in the public transportation sector, and are known as “interest” arbitration, rather than “rights” arbitration. This writer has personally arbitrated numerous such interest arbitrations. As an example of their complexity, an employer usually must call witnesses for each of the contract issues in dispute, to testify why the employer’s version of the issue should prevail. It is not uncommon for the employer to introduce literally hundreds of exhibits supporting its position. Sometimes the exhibits are so voluminous and lengthy, it is necessary to summarize each one, on the theory that the arbitrators may never read all the exhibits, so it is best for them to at least be likely to read the summaries. Further, arbitrators depend on support from both the employer and organized labor sectors to gain appointments as arbitrators, and so it is quite common for them to compromise and “split the baby.” The arbitration process is not only quite complicated, but also quite expensive.
This article is part of our September 2026 Newsletter.
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