Depending upon the Administration in Washington, every few years labor law reform legislation gets introduced in Congress. Among other proposed legislation, the Democrat’s had their Protect the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that would have thrown many pro-labor requirements into national labor law. Now it’s the Republicans’ turn.
A package of labor bills that are generally pro-business was introduced in the Senate on November 10th. These bills were introduced by the Republican Senator from Louisiana, Senator Bill Cassidy.
These bills are intended to expand “worker choice by ensuring the integrity of union elections, helping workers reach a first contract in a timely manner and enhancing workers’ opportunity to determine whether a union contract is working for them.”
How do these bills attempt to do the above?
Secret- Ballot Mandate and Turnout Threshold – The bill requires union election only through an NLRB administered secret ballot election adding a quorum rule of at least two-thirds of the unit employees must vote and the union needing a majority of votes cast to win the election.
Election Bars and Recuring Windows – This change to labor law attempts to open up the decertification “window” by creating a 90-day period every two years giving an additional opportunity to vote out the union if it is found the union did not bargain in good faith.
No Successor Bar – In the event a business with a union is sold or merged with another business the parties (mostly the employers) could bring an immediate post-transaction challenge to union representation rather than having to wait six months as they do under current law.
Blocking Charges, Settlement Bar, and Timing Limits – This bill limits attempts to block a union election by bringing an unfair labor practice charge – a tactic unions often use to stop an election where the campaign may not be going their way. The bill would mandate documentation and witnesses, accelerate election timelines, and limit unions’ ability to delay elections in an attempt to influence the outcome.
No- Raid Agreements – This bill seeks to break up agreements that one union would not attempt to organize the same workers that another union is organizing. Currently, these agreements between unions are legal. This bill would eliminate the right to “stand aside,” giving another union unrestricted ability to organize a worker unit within a company. Removing this no-raid agreement “invites more inter-union competition, multi-union campaigns, and rival petitions”
Another bill in this labor package, introduced by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, aims to safeguard employee personal data collected during union campaigns and elections, preventing its use for non-organizing purposes. It would also require employers to provide the union with a voter list within just two days and restrict the amount of information included on that list. Further the union would be subject to a ULP if they did not protect the personal information on the voter list.
Another bill in this legislative package would require a union to provide workers with a copy of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, with summarization so workers understand their rights around the use of union dues and fees.
The bills also seek to strengthen requirements around union website compliance and non-representational spending of union dues and fees.
Another significant change to the NLRA in this package of bills would be a requirement that the NLRB orders cannot conflict with decisions of the U.S Court of Appeals in the Circuit where the ULP occurs. This change attempts to curtail the NLRB’s frequent ignoring of Court of Appeals rulings against it until a possible U.S Supreme Court decision that may take a long time or may never come.
A further change in this package of labor bills proposed by the Republican Senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, codifies a burden shifting test around the right of employers to discipline a worker if the worker wrongfully engaged in harassment or abuse (verbal) when otherwise engaged in picketing or other protected activity. This change to the law is focused on curtailing workers that engage in bad behavior on the picket line or elsewhere that absent the activity taking place around a labor strike or picketing would have been illegal harassment – behavior that would have been found to amount to illegal discrimination otherwise.
Lastly, one of the bills supported by the Republican Senator from Indiana, James Banks, would create a ULP if a union seeks to organize illegal immigrants or the employer that hires them. This adds an NLRA violation on top of immigration enforcement element to the labor law.
As in the past, and as with other proposed labor legislation introduced since 1984 which is the last year the NLRA was amended, these bills will probably languish in the Senate (and maybe the House) if taken up there, and depending upon a future Administration taken out again to show one side or the other how our legislators are working for them.
Source: Law360 Employment Authority. Pre-Employer Labor Law Reform Proposed by Senate GOP: What’s in the Package and Why it Matters. (11/18/2025)