From today’s New Jersey Globe:
Rep. Donald Norcross (D-Camden)’s bill to speed up the collective bargaining process passed the House yesterday evening, a major victory for the South Jersey congressman given that Republicans remain in control of Congress.
Earlier this year, Norcross and a handful of pro-labor Democrats and Republicans came up with a plan to pass his Faster Labor Contracts Act via a discharge petition, a mechanism that puts bills directly on the House floor if they get 218 signatures. The bill, they realized, had majority support among House members, and the only thing holding it back was opposition from GOP leadership.
On May 20, the petition got its critical 218th signature, forcing the bill onto the House floor. Yesterday’s vote came out to 230-193, with 20 Republicans voting in favor – Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester) both among them.
“Unions represent workers of all political stripes, and [yesterday’s] resounding bipartisan vote should clearly demonstrate the collective power of workers’ voices,” Norcross said in a statement. “Solidarity forever, and it’s time to get this bill over the finish line.”
If enacted, the Faster Labor Contracts Act would add new deadlines for union negotiations, and allow mediators to step in if they take too long; the point, Norcross said, is to prevent employers from deliberately dragging out the collective bargaining process in order to quash unionization efforts.
Similar provisions can be found in the PRO Act, a further-reaching labor bill that Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to pass during their times in the majority. Norcross and his allies, including the Teamsters, recognized that while that bill is a nonstarter in GOP-controlled Washington, a more limited effort might be possible.
Read the complete story here.