Workers for Opportunity has joined a broad coalition to oppose the Faster Labor Contracts Act, federal legislation that would allow government bureaucrats to impose union contracts on workers without their approval. The announcement came June 8, 2026, in a letter signed by multiple organizations warning that the proposed bill would remove democracy from the workplace and hand sweeping new powers to federal mediators.

The legislation would compress contract bargaining into a 90-day window, according to the coalition letter. After that period, either side could bring in the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service for 30 days of mediation. If no agreement emerges, a panel of arbitrators can impose terms that bind both workers and employers for two years—even if workers themselves never voted to approve those terms. The concept and most of the language originated in a union-sponsored federal bill called the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. It's now being advanced as stand-alone legislation by Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, while Rep. Donald Norcross, a New Jersey Democrat, secured just enough signatures from blue-state Republicans to force a House vote through a discharge petition.

At a recent Senate hearing, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy—chair of the federal labor committee—explained the policy in practical terms, according to Vincent Vernuccio, a senior fellow with Workers for Opportunity who testified at the session. Cassidy said the bill would "take workers out of the process by removing the need to ratify a contract," adding that if government mandated arbitration, workers "cannot reject" the resulting agreement even though it would be binding on them. When Cassidy asked a union official what would happen if workers lost the ability to ratify contracts, the official replied that it would mean "removing the democracy from the workplace." The union official, a Democratic witness, added that workplace democracy "is the whole point of the union" because it gives workers "a say," inadvertently rejecting a key priority of the Democratic senators who'd invited him.

The Workers for Opportunity announcement highlights a fundamental tension in the bill: it empowers government bureaucrats at the expense of the workers unions claim to represent. Under current law, union members vote to ratify or reject proposed contracts, giving them final say over their own working conditions. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would eliminate that safeguard by allowing arbitrators to impose terms after just 120 days of bargaining and mediation. The report notes that this removes workers from the voting process entirely, stripping them of their most direct form of workplace control. Even a union official opposed to the legislation recognized that worker ratification is essential to union democracy—yet the bill's supporters, including the senators who invited him to testify, back a policy that eliminates it.

Workers for Opportunity signed onto the opposition coalition because the legislation hands bureaucrats more power while taking democracy away from workers, according to the organization. The bill has gained unusual bipartisan traction, with a Republican senator sponsoring it in the upper chamber and enough blue-state GOP representatives signing a discharge petition to force a House vote. That makes the coalition's opposition particularly significant: it's not just union members who stand to lose their vote, but any worker covered by a contract imposed through mandatory arbitration. The bottom line is stark—if the bill passes, workers could be bound for two years by terms they never approved.