The writer is an FT contributing editor and chief economist at American Compass

For the past five decades, as private sector union membership in the US collapsed, the National Labor Relations Act went unchanged. Labour leaders funded the Democratic Party and made maximalist demands often unpopular with workers themselves. The Republican Party, largely beholden to business interests, was content to oppose any reform and let worker power wither. 

Now, however, a small but growing cadre of pro-worker conservatives is scrambling that playing field, most recently with the passage on Tuesday of the landmark Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA) in the House of Representatives. Seventeen of them co-sponsored the bill and seven joined with Democrats to force a vote over the opposition of their own leader, Speaker Mike Johnson. In the final tally, 20 Republicans voted to strengthen substantially the position of workers seeking a union contract. 

People often assume that the vote on whether to form a union is the make-or-break moment in securing the right to bargain collectively. In fact, a successful union election merely marks the start of negotiations that might go nowhere. Most workers, a year after forming their union, still don’t have an agreement. Employers use stalling tactics to sap momentum and undermine workers’ enthusiasm for the process.

The act seeks to change that by establishing a tight timeline for bargaining a first contract: ten days to begin negotiations and another 90 to reach an agreement. If no deal is reached, the parties move into 30 days of mediation and then, if necessary, an arbitration panel steps in to settle a final contract that binds both sides for two years.

In Washington, the provisions had lived within the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a union wish list that Democrats failed to advance through a partisan push. In the past, that would have been the end of it. But as polling from American Compass demonstrated last year, not all of the labour demands were unpopular. And with conservatives more frequently making the case for worker power, and working-class voters shifting to the right, Republicans, led by senators Josh Hawley, Bernie Moreno and Roger Marshall, sensed an opportunity.

Worried corporate groups have tried to cast themselves as the true union enthusiasts. “Congress shouldn’t take away the voices of workers through forced arbitration,” says Americans for Tax Reform. The US Chamber of Commerce warns that, “without ever having a vote from union members, the government could decide workplace rules, pay, and benefits”. 

The problem with these arguments is that, absent a union, workers are already subject to terms and conditions of employment set by some combination of government regulation and employer fiat. If working under conditions you did not vote for is some grave injustice that employers wish to remedy, they should all recognise unions voluntarily and perhaps even support industry-wide sectoral bargaining. 

Workers voting for a union after passage of the FLCA would know that one possible outcome is an arbitrator-imposed contract. One assumes few of them want a union that can be stalled endlessly by management rather than one that has a backstop of mediation and arbitration.

Only a few years ago, the prospect of Republican legislators helping to strengthen labour law would have seemed outlandish. Now it is happening and seems likely to become more common. In a world where both parties can find common ground on pro-worker reforms, the corporate lobby accustomed to straightforward obstruction may need a new game plan. More importantly, they may need to get serious about bargaining in good faith and treating workers well.