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Imagine negotiating a contract that governs your pay, schedule and benefits, only to have someone outside your workplace decide its final terms. That could happen under the Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA), a proposal before Congress affecting first contracts between newly certified unions and employers.
We all support good-faith bargaining and understand why workers and employers want a timely first contract. But a deadline that ends in a contract imposed by a government arbitration panel is the wrong way to achieve that goal.
Negotiating contracts is and should remain the prerogative of workers and employers. The long arm of the federal government should not set the timeline for private sector contracts. Workers and employers must remain free and able to bargain for the terms each desire.
No free country should dictate to a worker or an employer the terms of a private labor contract.
The Faster Labor Contracts Act would set a timetable for negotiating a first contract after a union is newly certified or recognized. The parties would meet and begin bargaining within 10 days after the employer receives a written request.
If they have no agreement after 90 days of bargaining, either party could request federal mediation. If mediation fails after another 30 days, the dispute will go to a three-person, federal-government arbitration panel.
The panel's decision would bind both sides for two years unless they agree in writing to amend it.
That means a government panel, potentially unfamiliar with a particular West Virginia workplace, could decide matters as consequential as schedules, time off, health benefits and work rules.
Unions and employers would have opportunities to present their positions, but neither would have the final say over terms imposed through arbitration. Nor would workers have an opportunity to ratify the final contract.
The contract sets the foundation for the relationship between the employees and employer. Reaching a first contract can take persistence and compromise. A federal timetable may put pressure on both sides to move faster, but it should not replace their ability to reach an agreement with which both sides can live and prosper.
These negotiations are about important factors in people’s livelihoods. The workers and the employers should negotiate and agree to these vital elements - not government bureaucrats. West Virginia doesn’t need more federal red tape.
Our workers and employers don’t need Washington to decide for them what they are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves.
Passage of the big-government FLCA can take important decisions out of the hands of West Virginia’s employees and employers. West Virginia workers deserve the say over the terms that shape their jobs. West Virginia businesses deserve agreements that reflect the realities of their operations.
These agreements are best forged at the negotiating table, not in a government-imposed contract.
West Virginia workers and employers deserve better.
Mitch Carmichael is a former West Virginia Secretary of Economic Development and former President of the West Virginia Senate.