Big labor unions have been running the same playbook for years. They muscle their way into a workplace, misrepresent the facts and themselves, make empty promises to workers, and try to silence dissenters. Then, when they lose, they cry foul. Here in Alabama, we’ve seen this play out before: at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance and the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer. In both cases, workers rejected unionization, but the unions refused to take “no” for an answer – appealing endlessly to Washington bureaucrats at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to harass job creators. Now the big labor unions are trying a new legislative approach that employs many of the same old tactics.
At last week’s Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on labor law reform, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien presented what he claimed is a new approach for the big labor union – eschewing monster labor “reform” legislation for smaller individual bills. Make no mistake, this approach represents the same old tactics, and it still bends the control curve away from workers and toward labor bosses.
The reality is that O’Brien proposes nothing new. For years, union leaders have pushed massive bills in Congress like the PRO Act, stuffed with every item on their wish list — eliminating secret ballot elections, ending right-to-work protections, forcing employers into gag orders called “neutrality agreements,” and empowering the NLRB to overturn elections when workers vote “no.” Congress and the American people rejected those ideas because they undermine worker freedom, tip the scales toward union bosses, and hurt small businesses.
Now, the big labor unions are trading in their “wish-list bill” approach for a piecemeal strategy. The end game remains, however – to pressure workers into forfeiting their rights and workplace freedoms.
The so-called Faster Labor Contracts Act is one of the first steps in this new tactical departure. The legislation would force employers to begin bargaining with a new union in just ten days. If the two parties don’t reach an agreement in 90 days, the government forces mediation. One month after that, the matter goes to binding arbitration, meaning an outside arbitrator will dictate wages, benefits, and workplace rules for years to come.
That’s not worker freedom. It’s top-down federal control. Americans recognize proposals like this for what they are: a Washington power grab. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey released just two weeks ago found that 90% of voters oppose government-mandated union contracts without worker approval. That’s about as close to unanimity as you’ll ever get in American politics.
The American economy works best when workers are free to make their own choices and employers can negotiate in good faith without artificial deadlines or government-imposed contracts. Washington should not be stepping in to silence employers, rush negotiations, or override workers’ priorities.
Sean O’Brien’s testimony this week shows what big labor’s strategy really is: chip away at worker freedoms one bill at a time until they’ve accomplished through the back door what they couldn’t win through the front. This is an obvious attempt to expand union power at the expense of American workers, and I hope our elected lawmakers in Washington will reject it.
