Posts tagged arbitration
Labor Watch: Harvard Grad Students End 40-Day Strike
June 3, 2026 // he Harvard Graduate Students Union announced Monday that its 40-day strike has ended “with the close of the academic year,” though the union has still not reached a bargaining agreement with the university. The strike—the longest in the union’s history—spanned the end-of-semester grading period and university commencement, which wrapped on Friday. Over the last several weeks, the university offered to expand benefits to all graduate student workers, provide dental coverage for Ph.D. students and increase its four-year raise proposal by 1 percent, the union said in a news release. These moves were the “first indication of engagement” from the university on the union’s priorities, the release said.
JD Vance Courts Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters
June 1, 2026 // Mr. O’Brien is desperate for a win in Washington to sell to his 1.3 million members as he runs for re-election. Some Republicans in Congress seem eager to give him one—maybe two—as they seek to burnish their bona fides as defenders of the working class. These Republicans are doing more to help Democrats—the primary beneficiaries of Teamster campaign donations—than workers. The Teamsters’ membership has shrunk by nearly half since the 1970s amid a broader decline in organized labor. Technology has improved productivity. At the same time, jobs have migrated to states with right-to-work laws, which prohibit unions and employers from making union membership a condition of employment. The Teamsters have also lost rank-and-file support. Between 2016 and 2025, members filed 373 petitions to decertify the Teamsters, according to Reason magazine. Some 60% of the decertification elections succeeded. You can’t blame union members for wearying of paying dues that bankroll Democratic candidates and lavish lifestyles of union leaders. In the 2023-24 election cycle, 92% of Teamsters PAC donations to federal candidates went to Democrats, as did 91% of the union’s contributions to party committees.
Faster Labor Contracts Act would silence workers’ voices and empower bureaucrats
May 28, 2026 // While forced arbitration for union contracts would be new in the private sector, there is a corollary in the public sector called “interest arbitration” that some states most frequently apply to police and firefighter labor disputes. It’s not entirely analogous because a government that imposes forced arbitration is also the employer and thus part of the contract negotiations. Moreover, governments aren’t subject to the same bottom line as private sector companies because, unlike businesses, states generally can’t go bankrupt. Nevertheless, interest arbitration contracts have burdened state and local governments, arguably contributing to rising property tax rates in New Jersey, unfunded pensions in Chicago, and even municipal bankruptcy in Detroit.
OP ED: The FCLA is a Bad Deal for Both Workers and Employers
May 4, 2026 // 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.
Opinion Editorial Board ‘Ha! She has been supporting the thing she despises this entire time.’
May 4, 2026 // Adding to their contempt for Carter, the union continued to fight her in court. Finally, last week, the case came to a close when Carter received almost $950,000 in damages from Southwest and the TWU. Carter was only able to afford this lawsuit because of pro bono representation by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. How many other Southwest flight attendants have had their money used for political activism they oppose by a union that hates their beliefs?
Republicans must not help Democrats gut workplace democracy
April 29, 2026 // If they can’t reach an agreement in time, the federal bureaucrats would force the creation of an arbitration panel, which would then unilaterally impose a collective bargaining agreement. But workers wouldn’t be allowed to vote for the contract, even though it dictates the terms of their employment. Voting on a contract is standard practice precisely because it lets workers make their voice heard and control their future. Before Cassidy named the bill, he described what it would do. The shop steward replied that taking away the contract vote would mean “removing democracy from the workplace.” He then said that democracy “is the whole point of the union.” The shop steward may not have known then that the senator was describing a proposal that his own union supports. But he was absolutely right: Forcing a contract on workers without a vote is the opposite of workplace democracy.
General Assembly rejects amended bill on collective bargaining for public workers
April 27, 2026 // The General Assembly is holding a reconvened session to consider the governor’s amended and vetoed bills, including SB 378 and HB 1263 from Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-34) and Del. Kathy Tran (D-18). The General Assembly did not take up Spanberger’s substitute to the legislation yesterday or today (Thursday). The General Assembly-passed legislation expands upon a 2020 Virginia law that gave localities the choice to adopt ordinances to collectively bargain with public employees for the first time since 1977. Fairfax County is among the jurisdictions to subsequently authorize collective bargaining, approving contractors for general county government employees as well as police and firefighters.
Thousands of Harvard University graduate students go on strike
April 21, 2026 // Their demands include fair pay and raises that keep up with inflation, protections for non-citizen workers, and external processes with third-party arbitration for cases of harassment, discrimination, and abuse in the workplace. HGSU is made up of 4,000 workers.
Littler Lightbulb – March 2026 Employment Appellate Roundup
April 21, 2026 // This Littler Lightbulb highlights some of the more significant employment and labor law developments in the federal courts of appeal in the last month.
Op-ed: A bipartisan bill that would hurt employers and unions
April 12, 2026 // The bill would mandate that workers sometimes be subjected to labor contracts that they never vote for. The idea is to reduce the amount of time it takes between a union being recognized as the collective bargaining agent in a workplace and the enactment of an agreement. The National Labor Relations Act requires recognized unions and employers to negotiate in good faith, but it does not say how long that negotiating may last. In some cases, it can last years.