I’d begun to wonder when we’d see a third when I learned that the House Armed Services Committee last week adopted an amendment to this year’s defense authorization bill restoring collective-bargaining rights for civilian workers in the Defense Department, and that the same language last year cleared the House as part of that year’s defense authorization bill before the Senate stripped it out in House-Senate conference prior to final passage. Clearly the legislative politics surrounding labor rights are shifting in labor’s favor.
Even if the Senate managed to pass one or both bills, it wouldn’t matter, because the dependably anti-labor Trump (who, bafflingly, increased his share of the working-class vote from 51 percent in 2016 to 56 percent in 2024) would veto it. Norcross’s defense authorization amendment, if it clears the House again, will attract less notice, and Trump might not bother to veto an entire Defense bill over a labor provision. But my guess is he won’t have to, because the Senate will likely strip it out again before it gets to his desk.
The defense authorization amendment bypassed Education and the Workforce because it lacks jurisdiction over the military. December’s bill to restore collective-bargaining rights to all federal workers and this week’s bill removing management obstacles to negotiating union contracts both got to the House floor by discharge petition, a parliamentary procedure by which any House member may collect signatures to force a vote on a bill bottled up in committee. Once that member has acquired 218 signatures (i.e., a majority), they can bring the bill to the floor.
There isn’t much a union can do about such management foot-dragging except file an unfair labor practice complaint with the NLRB, and if a Republican is in the White House, the NLRB won’t likely be very responsive. Even under Democratic administrations the NLRB lacks statutory authority to level meaningful penalties. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would amend the 1935 National Labor Relations Act to require that employers begin negotiating a labor contract within 10 days of a union election. If 90 days pass without an agreement, the matter will be referred to a mediator, and if the mediator can’t hammer out an agreement within 30 days the matter will be referred to a binding three-person arbitration panel. Getting a bill like that to the House floor was no small accomplishment.
Five Republicans signed the discharge petition to bring the Protect America’s Workforce Act to the House floor. They were: Representatives Nick LaLota and Michael Lawler of New York; Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick and Robert Bresnahan of Pennsylvania; and Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska. All except Bacon represent blue states. That was a year ago. In March and April, all five signed the discharge petition for the Faster Labor Contracts Act, joined this time by two red-staters: Representatives Max Miller of Ohio and Riley Moore of West Virginia. And in the final vote, these seven Republicans were joined by 13 more. In both last December’s bargaining rights bill and this week’s union contract bill, 20 House Republicans voted for a pro-union bill. That tells me the December vote was not a fluke. When more than one-third of the Republican House caucus casts pro-union votes, even though few of these members supported labor rights in the past, that’s news.
In the end, it didn’t matter what the Education and the Workforce majority thought. The bill cleared the House anyway. Those 20 pro-union Republican votes aren’t yet able to make much difference. But they’re a sign that labor solidarity is starting to undermine partisan solidarity. Senate Republicans, take heed.
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