In today’s news and commentary, SoFi stadium workers narrowly avoid a World Cup strike, the Fifth Circuit rules to keep Amazon’s challenge to the NLRB out of the Second Circuit, and the House passes a bill to impose faster timelines on first union contracts.

On Tuesday, workers at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles reached a tentative deal to avoid a strike. The action was planned to start just days before the US men’s opening game of the World Cup. Yesterday, Anthony reported that the Unite Here local of over 2,000 employees had overwhelmingly voted in favor of a strike for improved wages and working conditions. One of the union’s chief contentions concerned protections against immigration enforcement, which has been prevalent in Los Angeles over the past year. Part of the tentative deal reached yesterday allows workers to walk off the job if the Union finds that federal immigration enforcement “threatens worker safety.” Local World Cup organizing committees and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin have stated that immigration enforcement may play varying roles in security and investigations over the course of the tournament. 

Meanwhile, on Monday, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released an unpublished opinion ruling that Amazon’s challenge to the NLRB must remain in its court, rejecting the Board’s bid to move the case to the Second Circuit. Amazon is challenging the NLRB’s 2022 certification of a union of over 5,000 workers in a Staten Island Amazon warehouse. The NLRA’s permissive venue provision allowed Amazon to file its challenge in any circuit where it does business, so it initially chose the Fifth Circuit. When the Teamsters filed in the Second Circuit, a random lottery between the two venues was triggered, which Amazon won in April. Now, the panel of judges split 2-1 against allowing the NLRB to transfer the case to New York, where the events in question took place. The one-page opinion does not include any reasoning, but is a significant victory for Amazon, given the NLRB’s relatively low rate of success in the Fifth Circuit. 

Finally, on Tuesday evening, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would force employers to meet unions at the table more quickly following successful union elections. Currently, it takes an average of 461 days for a union to ratify its first contract. The Faster Labor Contracts Act replicates one provision of the broader PRO Act which aims at alleviating this issue. If passed into law, employers would have to begin negotiations within ten days of a union election, and reach an agreement within 90 days before federal mediators get involved. If the parties cannot reach a deal 30 days after that, a federal arbitration panel would have the power to create an agreement that binds the parties for two years. 210 House Democrats were joined by 20 Republicans in passing the bill after a discharge petition successfully forced the bill out of committee and on to the House floor. The bill has faced intense pushback from business interests like the Chief Human Resource Officer Association which has called it “draconian.” It will now move to the Senate where a similar version has been cosponsored by a bipartisan coalition including Senators Cory Booker and Josh Hawley.