Today, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) and 376 undersigned organizations sent a letter to Members of the U.S. House of Representatives urging them to oppose the Faster Labor Contracts Act (H.R. 5408), which is being brought to the House floor via a discharge petition (H.Res. 1140). The FLCA would empower the federal government to dictate the terms of contracts between unions and companies, strip workers of their right to ratify the agreements governing their wages and working conditions, and impose an unconstitutional expansion of federal power at odds with the Trump administration’s effort to rein in the federal bureaucracy.

The following statement can be attributed to CDW Chair Kristen Swearingen:

“The FLCA is big government at its worst. 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. Business owners and workers would have no recourse against the government if the arbitrator guesses wrong on what terms are affordable. The result could be companies forced to close and workers left without jobs. The FLCA is all about increasing union leverage even if it harms workers, and it would encourage unions to bargain in bad faith in order to position themselves favorably before arbitrators.

“Hundreds of employer organizations representing industries across the country have united in opposition to this bill, because they know what it would mean in practice. The economic record is clear: when unchecked union bargaining power operates without the market discipline that voluntary agreement provides, the result is layoffs, business closures, and harm to the very workers the bill claims to help. The FLCA also violates the Constitution and is an unprecedented intrusion against Americans’ right to contract for themselves. Members of Congress who support this bill are not standing up for workers—they are cutting workers out of the very process that is supposed to protect them. We urge Congress to reject the Faster Labor Contracts Act.”