The Faster Labor Contracts Act would give workers a fair shot at a better life

Labor Day reminds me of a moment in my childhood. I couldn’t have been more than five years old, sitting on my grandfather’s knee and listening to stories about his journey from Ireland through Ellis Island. He taught me more than family history. He taught me what hard work could make possible — and how his membership in the Iron Workers union gave him the security and opportunity to build the better life he had crossed an ocean in search of.

For too many families today, that dream has slipped out of reach. The Faster Labor Contracts Act is one way I am working to restore it — by giving workers a fairer path to the security, opportunity and upward mobility that helped change the course of my own family.

The pressures facing working families are not abstract. Housing, health care, education, childcare and everyday necessities consume more of the family budget. Wages have struggled to keep pace. And even workers who exercise their legal right to organize can spend months — or years — waiting for their first contract that actually moves them forward.

A new Gallup report shows labor unions with a 71 percent approval rating, the highest in recent history, with support extending across Independents, Republicans and Democrats. It’s easy to understand why. Research shows that union workers earn over 11 percent more than their nonunion peers and are more likely to have employer-sponsored health coverage and access to paid sick leave.

Yet only 10 percent of Americans belong to unions today.

When workers seek to organize, they can face sophisticated anti-union campaigns, designed to discourage them from exercising that right. Where these tactics fail, some employers refuse to bargain in good faith altogether. As a result, it takes almost a year and a half on average for workers to negotiate a first contract.

The consequences extend well beyond the bargaining table. The decline in union membership has coincided with the eroding standard of living for middle-class families. As bargaining power for workers has decreased, we’ve seen income inequality skyrocket, wages stagnate, and less economic mobility than ever before.

This is not the American Dream that brought my family away from the emerald shores of Ireland, and it’s not the American Dream working families yearn for as they agonize over how to afford a home, educate their children, pay their medical bills, or simply keep pace with the rising cost of everyday life.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act would address one of the clearest failures in the current system. It would require employers to begin bargaining within 10 days of notification from a new union. If an agreement isn’t reached after 90 days of good-faith negotiations, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service would step in unless both parties agree to extend negotiations. If mediation still fails to produce an agreement, federal arbitrators could then issue a binding two-year decision to resolve the impasse.

I have seen the importance of that principle firsthand in my own community, Pennsylvania’s 1st District. When our nurses at St. Mary Medical Center in Bucks County voted to organize, I supported their decision and their right to have a meaningful voice in the workplace.

The same standard should apply wherever Pennsylvania workers choose to organize. At UPMC Magee-Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, nearly 1,000 nurses and advanced practitioners voted last year to form a union and strengthen their voice for their patients and profession. In first-contract negotiations, they have sought stronger staffing standards, compensation that helps retain experienced nurses, and expanded benefits, including parental leave. More than a year later, they remain without an agreement.

That is where the Faster Labor Contracts Act matters. A vote to organize should begin a meaningful bargaining process, not an indefinite waiting game. When workers have made their choice and come to the table in good faith, delay should not be allowed to render that choice meaningless.

That same commitment to protecting the economic security of working families is also driving my work with SEIU on the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act . Across the Philadelphia region, airport service workers can lose hard-earned wages and benefits simply because a new contractor takes over. A change in contractor should not mean a step backward for the people doing the work. In both cases, the principle is simple: Hard work should still provide a fair path to stability, opportunity and a better future.

Working Americans are facing a rising cost of living, wages that have struggled to keep pace, and an economy in which too many families feel they are working harder simply to tread water. We need the Faster Labor Contracts Act to restore balance, strengthen workers’ bargaining power, and ensure that choosing to organize leads to a fair and timely first contract.

This Labor Day, the Senate has an opportunity to renew a basic American promise: that hard work should still lead to a better life. I call on my colleagues to pass the FLCA, stand on the side of American workers, and help ensure that promise remains within reach for the next generation.

Brian Fitzpatrick represents Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.