OPINION:
Congress recently handed organized labor its biggest win in a generation, and most Americans have no idea it happened.
On June 9, the Faster Labor Contracts Act passed the House by a 230-193 vote, with 20 Republicans breaking ranks to align with Democrats. Headlines called it bipartisan. The reality is closer to a heist.
Using a discharge petition — a tactic wielded with alarming frequency in this Congress — Democrats and seven Republican defectors dragged the bill to the floor, where it passed with 20 Republican votes, marking one of the most radical expansions of union power in decades.
The measure mandates several concerning elements that strip away workplace autonomy.
Under it, employers must begin contract negotiations within just 10 days of a union’s bargaining request. If no agreement is reached after 90 days, either party may refer the matter to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Should mediation fail for another 30 days, a three-member arbitration panel steps in to impose a binding two-year contract with terms neither side ever voted on.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien called the legislation “one of the most consequential labor bills to come before Congress in generations.” That is why it should alarm every hardworking American, especially as it is not an isolated case.
In December 2025, the Protect America’s Workforce Act similarly passed the House by a 231-195 vote, with 20 Republicans voting against American workers via a discharge petition. This bill nullifies President Trump’s two executive orders that stripped collective bargaining rights from roughly 1 million federal workers and restores preexisting union contracts in accordance with their stated terms.
In May, the Railway Safety Act of 2026 — backed by rail unions and, notably, endorsed by President Trump — was folded into the BUILD America 250 Act, attaching a long-sought regulatory package to the must-pass surface transportation reauthorization bill. Increased penalties, expanded hazmat classifications and prescriptive inspection rules will now be imposed on freight rail operators.
These are costly requirements that the freight rail industry has warned about and that rail unions have long demanded.
Although each bill has been sold under the guise of bipartisanship, the American Accountability Foundation recently investigated eight years of Labor Department LM-2 filings, Federal Election Commission records and public statements for seven prominent unions cheering these bills. The findings expose a massive partisan pipeline.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the Railway Safety Act’s loudest champion, spent $26.9 million of member dues on politics from 2017 through 2024. Of the union’s political donations, 98.97% went to Democrats. Its leadership endorsed Harris-Walz and spent the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign attacking Mr. Trump from official accounts.
SMART-TD spent more than $35 million on politics over the same period, yet none of that money reached a single right-of-center organization. The group’s independent expenditures broke 100% Democratic.
The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees — whose Teamsters-affiliated D.R.I.V.E. PAC spent $20 on Democrats for every $1 it spent on Republicans — sent $441,000 to left-wing nonprofits, including the Center for American Progress, Washington’s flagship anti-Trump think tank. The Brotherhood also publicly opposed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The broader coalition pushing the Faster Labor Contracts Act looks no different. The Laborers’ International Union of North America moved $183 million into politics during the Trump era. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers directed 97% of its candidate spending to Democrats.
The United Steelworkers, whose federal PAC spent 90% of its campaign funding on Democrats, helped finance “No Kings” protests against the administration.
The United Auto Workers Union gave Republican Party organizations exactly zero dollars, despite a significant portion of its members supporting the Republican Party.
These are not the moderate, bipartisan unions of old. They are a financing arm of the Democratic Party, using member dues to bankroll fierce opposition to the very lawmakers whose crossover votes carried these bills across the finish line.
Rank-and-file union households moved toward Mr. Trump in 2024, yet mandatory dues do not follow their votes. Instead, their money flows upward to union bosses, who weaponize funds against members’ political interests, consistently sending member dues to the left.
Congressional floor time is finite. Every hour spent advancing the priorities of organized labor is an hour stolen from securing the border, restoring American manufacturing and tackling the other issues Congress was elected to address.
Union workers are distancing themselves from their leadership’s politics for a reason: They feel the disconnect between their priorities and where their dues go.
Policies built on employee choice, such as right-to-work protections, reflect what American workers actually want. The partisan legislation now moving through Congress reflects only what union leadership wants.
Pro-worker legislation is not synonymous with pro-union legislation; in fact, they often are opposites. It is time for Congress to wake up and realize this.
• Tom Jones is president of the American Accountability Foundation and has two decades of political, policy, research and investigations experience serving in senior legislative and investigatory positions on Capitol Hill as a Senate staffer.
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