The Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA), a bill designed to speed up the process by which a newly ratified union and an employer sign an initial collective bargaining agreement (CBA), passed the House in June and now heads to the Senate. In a new insight, Labor Policy Analyst Emmet Bowling provides a breakdown of the legislation and how it passed the House.

Key points:

• The bill would set strict timelines—which cumulatively add up to roughly four months—for the union and the employer to come to an initial CBA.
• If no agreement is reached after the expiration of certain timelines, then the dispute could move to a binding process where a federal arbitration panel would mandate the terms and conditions of the initial CBA.
• The established timelines and the imposition of binding arbitration could hasten the negotiation process and leave employers and workers with less of a voice when deciding on the wages, benefits, and working conditions of the initial contract.

Read the analysis.