The Faster Labor Contracts Act: When Workers Vote for a Union but Wait Years for a Contract, Who Wins?

Workers at a Brooklyn warehouse voted 87-12 to unionize in March 2023. Three years later, they still don't have a contract. Their employer keeps bargaining—technically. One session every six weeks. Counterproposals that arrive months late. Information requests that vanish into silence. Under current federal law, this is perfectly legal. There is no deadline. The workers voted. They're still waiting.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Faster Labor Contracts Act on June 23, 2026, by a vote of 230 to 193, with twenty Republicans joining 210 Democrats in support. The bill addresses this fundamental problem: workers can vote to unionize but then wait years without ever getting a first contract, making their democratic choice effectively hollow. Congressman Donald Norcross, who sponsored the bill, framed the timeline problem bluntly: "It shouldn't take 458 days for American workers to get their first union contract." The bill attempts to solve this by imposing strict deadlines on negotiations and ultimately mandating binding arbitration if employers and unions cannot reach agreement within approximately 120-130 days.

The Current System's Failure

Current federal law sets no deadline whatsoever for reaching a first contract after union certification. First union contracts currently take an average of 465 days to negotiate and sign, with the median at 374 days. More than half—53 percent—take one year or longer, and 43 percent of newly certified unions still do not have a contract after two years. Between 2020 and 2022, the mean time exceeded 500 days. At least 30 percent of newly certified unions fail to reach a contract within three years, and some estimates suggest approximately one-third of negotiations never result in a contract at all.

The cost is measured in waiting. Starbucks Workers United has been negotiating for a first contract for over 1,643 days as of June 2026, with talks breaking down in late 2024 after the company allegedly reneged on previously agreed terms and engaged in regressive bargaining. Amazon workers who successfully unionized have been waiting over 1,500 days without reaching a first contract.

Employers commonly delay through tactics including surface bargaining—negotiating only in appearance without genuine intent—refusing to respond to union proposals for months, withholding information, unreasonably postponing meetings, filing frivolous litigation, making unilateral changes to wages or working conditions, and threatening plant closures or job losses. When employers use unfair labor practices to impede negotiations, the chance of securing a contract within eighteen months drops by approximately 71 percent. Fewer than 10 percent of first union agreements have historically been reached within 120 days of certification—the approximate timeline the new bill would mandate.

How the Bill Would Work

Under the Faster Labor Contracts Act, employers must begin bargaining with newly certified unions within 10 days of certification. After 90 days without reaching an agreement, the dispute automatically moves to mediation for at least 30 days, conducted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. If mediation fails, the case proceeds to binding arbitration.

The arbitration panel consists of three members: one selected by the union, one by the employer, and one neutral arbitrator mutually agreed upon or appointed by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service if the parties cannot agree. The panel would be empowered to impose a binding two-year contract covering wages, benefits, and working conditions, based on a majority vote with no appeal process. It must consider specific factors including the employer's financial condition, wages and benefits at comparable employers, cost of living in the area, and employees' ability to sustain themselves and their families. The bill would also require the Government Accountability Office to produce a report on average workplace time-to-contract one year after enactment, creating a mechanism to track the law's impact.

The Democratic Paradox

The bill creates a paradox: it uses government intervention to protect workers' democratic vote for union representation, but that intervention involves potentially imposing contract terms rather than letting the parties negotiate them freely.

Labor advocates argue that without deadlines and arbitration, workers' democratic choice becomes meaningless because employers can simply run out the clock. Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien said: "Greedy corporations will do everything they can to deny workers a fair first contract and the wages and benefits they've earned. The Faster Labor Contracts Act is much-needed legislation that will expedite the process and hold employers accountable when they drag out negotiations."

Business groups counter that imposed contracts fundamentally undermine the bargaining process itself. Kristen Swearingen of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace warned that "Under the bill, if the parties fail to reach a first contract on an artificially compressed timeline, a federal arbitration panel gains the power to dictate wages, benefits, and nearly every other condition of employment—with no ability-to-pay floor, no worker ratification vote, and no appeal." Critics emphasize that workers would have no opportunity to vote on the final contract terms imposed by arbitrators, and that the panel could mandate wages and benefits without adequate consideration of whether an employer can afford them.

The tension is real: traditional collective bargaining depends on both parties having leverage and time to negotiate, but unlimited time has allowed one party to deny the other's democratic choice entirely.

A Historic Shift in Power

The McAfee Taft law firm described the bill as potentially "the most radical revision to the National Labor Relations Act in history." Teamsters President Sean M. O'Brien called it "the most consequential labor bill to come before Congress in decades."

The power shift is concrete: instead of employers benefiting from indefinite delay, the bill would impose a hard deadline of approximately four months before arbitration, fundamentally removing delay as a negotiating tactic. Major labor unions including the Teamsters, AFL-CIO, and United Steelworkers have strongly supported the legislation.

Over 376 business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, and National Federation of Independent Business, have opposed it. Adam Temple of the National Federation of Independent Business warned it would "dramatically expand the federal government's size, increase its involvement in the operations of small businesses nationwide, and give government bureaucrats the power to determine which businesses survive and which close." Michael Bellaman of Associated Builders and Contractors emphasized the unprecedented nature of the change: "This has never happened in America before."

First-contract arbitration is not without precedent internationally: Canada has used it in six jurisdictions with four distinct models, and research shows it reduces work stoppages during first-contract periods by at least 50 percent without lengthening their duration.

What Happens Next

The bill reached the House floor through extraordinary means: when Speaker Johnson refused to bring it up for a vote, Congressman Norcross filed a discharge petition—a rare procedural maneuver to bypass leadership—which received the required 218 signatures.

The legislation has genuine bipartisan support, co-led in the House by Donald Norcross (D-NJ) and Pete Stauber (R-MN), and introduced in the Senate by Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), with additional Republican co-sponsors including Roger Marshall and Bernie Moreno. Senator Hawley said after House passage: "We need real labor reform that puts workers first. For too long, mega corporations have denied workers' rights and refused to meet them in good faith at the bargaining table. I'm glad to see the House has done the right thing for working-class Americans. The Senate needs to pass my bill and get this done."

The bill now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, where its future remains uncertain with no scheduled floor vote and no indication of support from Senate Republican leadership. The conservative advocacy group Club for Growth has issued a key vote alert urging all senators to vote no and announced it will include the vote in its 2026 congressional scorecard, signaling significant pressure on Senate Republicans to oppose the legislation despite some GOP co-sponsors.

The debate the bill has forced represents a pivotal moment in defining what workplace democracy means: whether a union vote is merely symbolic if it can be stalled indefinitely, or whether protecting that vote justifies government intervention in the traditionally private realm of labor-management negotiations. Congressman Norcross declared the stakes plainly: "Those days are coming to an end"—referring to the era of indefinite delays—though whether that prediction comes true now rests with the Senate.