Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SENATE NEWS—HELP committee hearing sought to identify issues, explore proposals to reform labor law, (Oct 14, 2025)

By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.

The witnesses stressed the need for Congress to take action to protect workers bad-faith bargaining by employers.

In a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee last week, Jennifer Abruzzo, former general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and other witnesses delivered remarks on reforming federal labor laws to protect worker freedoms and strengthen workers’ rights. Abruzzo discussed the need to ensure corporate interests are not prioritized over those of workers, while others spoke of potential unintended consequences of proposed legislation.

“Congress has not updated labor laws for nearly 100 years, and yet clearly the workforce has changed. We need labor laws that work for workers, unions, and businesses, making our nation competitive in a 21st-century global economy,” said U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the HELP Committee in his introduction to the hearing. “Blind adherence to decades-old status quo does a disservice to workers and families. Retreating to our ideological corners is not the answer. The middle class is being squeezed, and they need our help. We must listen to everyone on how to move forward.”

Pro-worker NLRA. Abruzzo said that National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is a pro-worker statute, saying, “I believe it is incumbent upon this Congress to restore the balancing intent of the original Congress by ensuring that corporate interests are not elevated above workers’ rights and that workers gain true power over their working lives.” In her tenure at the NLRB, Abruzzo said she saw employers engage in “tactics to undermine their workers’ unions and concerted actions and to squelch their workers’ voices and choices about union representation,” abusing the agency’s processes, engaging in delay tactics, forum shopping, bringing constitutionality challenges, seeking and obtaining injunctions precluding continued NLRB enforcement mechanisms, and creating new employment models to avoid liability and accountability.

Abruzzo proposed solutions to Congress, including increasing funding to the NLRB, addressing the Board quorum issue, blocking the executive branch from “ursurp[ing] your responsibilities to all of us who voted for you.” Abruzzo asked, “Are you outraged, on behalf of all workers in this country, whose interests you are supposed to represent? I know I am.” Finally, Abruzzo suggested that Congress overhaul the NLRA to address gaps in legislation to broaden coverage of employees and employers, promote organizing and first contract bargaining, enable workers to better exercise their power, and assess reasonable costs for violations.

Proposed legislation and policy. Rachel Greszler, senior research fellow in workforce and public finance at The Heritage Foundation, discussed: (1) the potential unintended consequences of replacing private parties’ collaboration with government coercion, as well as of using top-down government intervention to address employer-specific and transitory workplace concerns; and (2) the case for modernizing labor laws to empower workers in the evolving future of work. Congress has introduced a number of policies that would alter current labor law, Greszler said, but the proposed policies could end up hurting the workers they seek to help, despite their goals of achieving faster first contracts and safer workplaces.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act, which seeks to significantly shorten the time between when a workplace becomes unionized and when it reaches its first collective bargaining agreement, could have unintended consequences, such as arbitrary and unrealistic deadlines, slower contracts, reduced union and worker clout in negotiations, politicization of collective bargaining agreements, stripping of workers’ rights to vote on a contract, limited effectiveness of workers’ right to strike during negotiation; and preclusion of union shop and agency shop agreements. The Warehouse Worker Protection Act, which seeks to improve the safety and general wellness of warehouse workers, could cause expedited automation, discrimination in hiring, reduced efficiency, and a slippery slope toward central planning, Greszler said.

First contract collective bargaining. Marvin E. Kaplan, principal at Jackson Lewis P.C., described the process of first contract collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), including the role of the NLRA. Kaplan’s statement focused on the NLRB’s determination of whether an employer or labor organization has acted in bad faith in the collective bargaining process and its consideration of evidence of bad faith bargaining, including engaging in surface bargaining, refusing to compromise, failing to advance proposals, the use of delay tactics, committing unfair labor practices, failing to provide relevant information, and placing conditions on bargaining.

“During my time on the NLRB, I regularly reminded myself not to allow bad facts to make bad law. I encourage everyone in this room to consider this before endorsing a significant shift in bargaining procedures under the NLRA,” Kaplan said. “I will conclude by saying the system works.”

Support for Faster Labor Contracts Act. Steve Cochran, skilled trades worker for Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and co-chair of the United Auto Workers Bargaining Committee stressed that, despite a year and a half of bargaining, workers with Volkswagen have been able to obtain a union contract. Cochran said, “The company has repeatedly violated labor law to delay us our fair share. They have unlawfully cut jobs at the plant. They have unlawfully refused to bargain in good faith. They have presented us with a quote-unquote final offer that maintains horrible healthcare, doesn’t protect our wages from inflation, and makes no commitment to keeping good jobs in Chattanooga. And this is a pattern from Volkswagen.” Cochran asked why the federal government is not doing its job and stressed that workers in the U.S. need new laws, such as the Faster Labor Contracts Act. Even if Congress can’t pass those bills, he said, “you can still make the union-busting stop. You can fully fund the [NLRB] so that it is able to do its job.”

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