Regardless of size, running a business is always a challenge, but these days, it seems harder than ever. Too often, Washington, D.C. fails to consider how their decisions could impact businesses like those that the WV Manufacturers Association represents. One example would be House Resolution 5408 (link), which is also known as the Faster Labor Contracts Act or FLCA. This federal legislation is not only a threat to West Virginia’s manufacturers, but to all businesses large and small across the Mountain State.
The FLCA is designed to speed up first-contract negotiations between newly organized workers and their employers. Under its structure, bargaining must begin within ten days of a union election. After that, a mediator steps in if there is no agreement within 90 days. If mediation fails, a government-appointed arbitration panel takes over and writes the contract with no further vote by the workers or employers who will be bound by it for the next two years.
Supporters describe this as leveling the playing field. For West Virginia’s manufacturers —and the workers they employ — it does the opposite.
This bill presumes that employers are acting in bad faith, but the National Labor Relations Board already has the authority to prosecute employers who genuinely refuse to bargain. This legislation goes far beyond existing law and creates an entirely new and unnecessary federal apparatus. For an employer who shows up to negotiate in good faith, that presumption is both unfair and costly. West Virginia is a right-to-work state — one that believes government should stay out of private-sector negotiations. The FLCA moves us in exactly the opposite direction.
The real-world track record of government-imposed contracts in this industry should give everyone pause. In one example, when an arbitrator in Canada imposed a 33 percent wage increase on a Walmart tire shop, the shop closed shortly after. The external arbitrator set terms the business could not absorb and moved on. That is what often happens when someone with no stake in the outcome writes the contract: the workers who were supposed to benefit end up without jobs.
It is worth noting that opposition to forced arbitration is not a partisan issue. The late AFL-CIO president George Meany called compulsory arbitration “an abrogation of freedom,” and the Airline Pilots Association described a similar proposal as “anathema to free collective bargaining.” It is important to remember that these are union voices expressing concern. These labor leaders understood that collective bargaining only works when both sides have genuine “skin in the game” and that handing the outcome to a government panel destroys the entire premise.
There is also a well-documented pattern in jurisdictions that have tried mandatory arbitration systems. Once arbitration becomes available as an option, it stops being treated as a last resort. Labor economists call it the “narcotic effect”—parties grow dependent on the government stepping in, good-faith bargaining atrophies, and the arbitration pipeline gets clogged. Even New Jersey’s reformed fast-track arbitration system, specifically redesigned for speed, takes a minimum of six months under optimal conditions. The FLCA promises five. No real-world system has ever delivered that. What is promised on paper and what happens are often two very different things.
While Congressman Riley Moore currently supports FLCA, we understand that he has genuine ties to labor in this state and we appreciate the great work that he has done on behalf of all his constituents. I hope he will take a hard look at what the FLCA bill actually does to the workers and employers of West Virginia and reconsider his support of it.
Bill Bissett is the President of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, a statewide advocacy group that represents manufacturers as well as companies dependent on manufacturing for their livelihoods.
