It’s only a matter of weeks before congressional aides will be able to unionize now that the U.S. House of Representatives has adopted a resolution of regulations set forth by the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights.
“Although they've been approved, those rules will not officially take effect for about two months and once they do take effect sometime in July, then the staff in any congressional office outside of the Senate can begin the process of forming unions and engaging in collective bargaining,” said Maxford Nelsen, director of labor policy for the Freedom Foundation.
Nelsen foresees that Missouri, Oregon, and the state of Washington will be early adopters.
“It’s unclear if any will choose to do so,” he said. “Presumably, the staff serving Missouri’s two Democrat congresspeople, Rep. Cori Bush and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, would be most likely to do so.”
The prospect of having congressional aides who belong to a union is problematic for a number of reasons, according to Nelsen.
“Congress is unlike most employers,” he said. “The employer-employee relationship is certainly more complicated, and the work is very unique so I think there will be some challenges for Congressional leadership and elected representatives to figure out how to deal with unions. They don't have the history for doing this so they will have to get up to speed on labor relations.”
First, doing business in Congress will become more difficult, the more offices unionize.
“Just because unionization tends to bring along with it work rules and restrictions that limit flexibility and limit management discretion,” Nelsen told the St. Louis Record.
Second, partisan politics could also intensify.
“So far, what we've seen is that the advocacy for unionization has been coming primarily from Democratic staff, not from Republican staff,” Nelsen said. “You could have a situation over the long term where most or all Democratic congressional staff are unionized and most Republican congressional staff are not.”
Finally, Democratic congressional offices that are unionized may find themselves dealing more publicly with labor disputes than their Republican counterparts.
"When you introduce unions and formal collective bargaining obligations into the equation, then you're not dealing with rumors or disgruntled former staff," Nelsen added. "You're dealing with official grievances or unfair labor practice complaints that might be public depending on the terms that the grievance gets negotiated. Certainly, it would be much more public than the way these things play out now."