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Culinary Union calls on U.S. Senate to pass Faster Labor Contracts Act

On September 23, 2026, Culinary Union joined U.S. Senators @senbooker from New Jersey and @sencortezmasto from Nevada to call on the Senate to pass the Faster Labor Contracts Act, bipartisan legislation that would guarantee workers who vote to form a union a first contract without years of delay. Under current law, there is no deadline for an employer to reach a first agreement once workers vote to unionize. Workers wait an average of 465 days for a first contract, and many never get one at all. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would require employers to begin bargaining within 10 days of a union's written request to negotiate, allow either party to request mediation from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service if no agreement is reached within 90 days, and refer the dispute to a three-person arbitration panel if mediation fails to produce a contract within an additional 30 days. An arbitration panel's decision would be binding for two years. “For 17 years, Station Casinos has done everything it can to block workers from exercising their right to a union contract - from firing leaders who organized their co-workers to using the pandemic as a scheme to break their union support,” said Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer of the Culinary Union. “Workers at Station Casinos won their union through National Labor Relations Board elections and yet they’ve been dragged through endless delays, appeals, and bad-faith tactics by the company. Culinary Union and Station Casinos’ workers demand justice, applaud Senators Booker and Cortez Masto for their continued leadership, and urge the swift passage of the Faster Labor Contracts Act. This legislation is needed because it puts real timelines and consequences on bad employers who stall. We stand with Station Casinos workers who are organizing and we won’t stop fighting until we win strong union contracts.”