Collective Bargaining Facing Big Changes as Faster Labor Contracts Act Passes Through the House

On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Faster Labor Contracts Act. This law, if approved by the Senate and the President, would drastically alter federal labor collective bargaining by imposing strict deadlines in negotiations for first union contracts.

Specific Changes to Federal Labor Law

If approved, the Faster Labor Contracts Act will amend the National Labor Relations Act and require employers to meet and bargain with a newly certified union within 10 days of receiving a written request, unless the parties agree to extend the time. It will also give both unions and employers the ability to seek mediation after 90 days of bargaining. If mediation proves fruitless after 30 days and the parties do not agree to extend this period of mediation, then they will be forced into binding interest arbitration to settle their disputes and agree to a two-year contract. Under current federal labor law, there are no set deadlines in which unions and companies need to come to terms on an agreement. Parties are currently free to bargain in good faith for as long as necessary to reach an agreement that compromises the needs of both the union/employees and employer. While a feature under some state laws for collective bargaining in the public sector, binding interest arbitration would be wholly new in the federal, private context.

Issues and Potential Negative Outcomes if the Law is Passed

Requiring binding interest arbitration may have several negative consequences to collective bargaining. First, under the proposed statute, the parties would be required to go to binding interest arbitration for a two-year contract. This hurts employers who typically seek longer term contracts in collective-bargaining negotiations to lock in their employment costs for a set amount of time and bring stability and security to their workplace. Some critics of the bill also argue that it will actually harm the collective bargaining process by giving government arbitrators too much say in matters regarding industries they know little about. Binding interest arbitration additionally restricts the parties’ ability to engage in good faith hard bargaining over terms and conditions that they deem essential to stand on. 

Lastly, the proposed law also sets unrealistic timelines for bargaining. Statistics show that, on average, it takes roughly 1.5 years of bargaining for a first contract to be ratified. The Faster Labor Contract Acts proposes to drastically speed up this process and there is no telling what the resulting product will be or how it will affect the specific industries in which these contracts are ratified.

Next Steps

Having passed the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill will now move to the U.S. Senate for approval and ultimately signature by the President. If signed into law, the Faster Labor Contracts Act will drastically change federal labor law and collective bargaining as we know it by accelerating the process and restricting both unions and employers’ abilities to negotiate terms for themselves.

If you have any questions about the effects this law may have on federal labor law or what your business’s obligations currently are with respect to collective bargaining, please contact Gaetano Urgo or one of our labor and employment attorneys at Davis & Campbell at (309) 673-1681 (Peoria), (312) 95-7110 (Chiago, or (520) 677-7401 (Phoenix).