WASHINGTON, June 10 -- The House passed legislation on Tuesday that would force employers to start bargaining with newly formed unions within 10 days, and it did so over the objections of the Republican leadership that controls the chamber, after 20 Republicans joined every voting Democrat to push the bill through 230 to 193.

The Faster Labor Contracts Act, introduced in September by Representative Donald Norcross of New Jersey, a former electrician and union official, never got a hearing from the committees the leadership controls. It reached the floor anyway through a discharge petition, the procedural crowbar that lets 218 members force a vote without the speaker's consent, CBS News reported. Norcross launched the petition in late Apr...