O’Brien, Rank-and-File Teamsters Urge Bipartisan Support for Discharge Petition
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien and rank-and-file Teamsters from Amazon and Corewell Health East joined lawmakers urging U.S. House members to sign onto a discharge petition for the Faster Labor Contracts Act. The petition, which was filed by Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ,1st District), would force a floor vote on the bill.
“In America today, workers are forced to wait 458 days on average before obtaining a first union contract. This is unfair, it’s un-American, and it must be fixed,” O’Brien said. “This bill needs to move, and it needs to move fast, because working people in this country have been waiting long enough.”
The legislation would require employers to meet workers at the bargaining table within 10 days of successfully voting to join a union. The Senate version of the bill was introduced earlier this year by Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and has continued to gain bicameral support.
“When we won our election to become Teamsters in November 2024, we were eager to get to the table, but it wasn’t until June 2025 that we started bargaining for our first union contract. And today, we are still fighting for our first contract nearly a year since we started negotiations,” said Rachel Szadyr, a cardiac ICU nurse at Corewell Health East. “When working people vote to organize, they deserve a contract in a timely manner. And if their employers hold things up, they should be held accountable. The case for the Faster Labor Contracts Act could not be any clearer.”
Under the leadership of the O’Brien-Zuckerman administration, the Teamsters Union has organized more than 90,000 workers nationwide in just four years, including 10,000 nurses at Corewell Health East in Michigan and nearly 10,000 Amazon workers. Amazon Teamsters alone have been waiting more than four years for the e-commerce giant to enter contract negotiations.
“Amazon, the worst employer in America, refuses to recognize our union even though multiple judges have consistently demanded that it do so,” said Novelette Russell, an Amazon Teamster from JFK8 in Staten Island. “The Faster Labor Contracts Act will empower us to address the poverty wages, sky-high injury rates, and other inhumane conditions that Amazon perpetuates by imposing real consequences on employers that think they are above the law.”
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents over 1.3 million hardworking people in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit Teamster.org for more information. Follow us on X @Teamsters and on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters.
Contact:
Kara Deniz, (202) 497-6610
KDeniz@teamster.org
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SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters
