The missing piece in the Senate committee hearing on the challenges facing newly unionized workers
A major focus of the hearing was Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) Faster Labor Contracts Act—bipartisan legislation to improve the process for reaching initial collective bargaining agreements when workers first organize a union. Currently, it is a common tactic for employers to slow-walk the bargaining process because there are no penalties for doing so, and delay frustrates workers and undermines their union. Research shows that only 36% of newly organized bargaining units achieve an initial collective bargaining agreement within a year, and a third of newly organized bargaining units still do not have a first contract after three years.