Democrats have long pushed pro-union measures sure to boost prices, even as they pretend to care about “affordability.” But why are Republicans now joining them?

On Tuesday, a full 20 GOPers crossed the aisle to pass the Faster Labor Contracts Act, 230-193.

The bill, lifted from Dems’ PRO Act, aims to boost unionization by forcing employers to agree to labor contracts within 90 days after a newly formed labor group calls for talks.

If the two sides don’t reach a deal by then, the bill empowers the feds to impose a contract on the company and its workers.

That’s absurd: The government has no business setting terms in private-sector contracts of any kind.

Decisions by government bureaucrats, who’d be far less familiar with the specific issues of a contract dispute than the workers and bosses themselves, are bound to be based on political biases — not economic realities.

And those realities can squeeze employers, leading to reduced hours, layoffs and even business closures.

They’re also sure to raise prices, as companies pass the added costs of pricey labor contracts on to consumers.

Meanwhile, other legislation — supposedly in response to the 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Ohio — slaps unnecessary new mandates on freight-rail firms, for no good reason other than to please the unions.

The most outrageous: a requirement for two-man crews, at a time when more and more vehicles — cars, trucks, boats, planes and, yes, even trains — are running with no crews at all.

In Europe, most trains have long run perfectly well with one-person crews.

Nor would such a requirement have prevented the East Palestine disaster: That train had three crew members aboard.

Other mandates, like more frequent inspections, are similarly unwarranted: Investigators cited an overheated wheel bearing, not anything an inspection would have caught, as the cause of the Norfolk Southern derailment.

Instead of focusing on the “causes of incidents like East Palestine,” warns Ian Jefferies, who heads the Association of American Railroads, these mandates will “only increase costs throughout the freight network and broader supply chain — with no proven safety benefit.”

That’ll hurt “rail customers, manufacturers, energy producers, farmers and American consumers.”

President Donald Trump and some Republicans in Congress are backing the amendments nonetheless.

It’s a rich irony that Democrats, who gave America Bidenflation and have long backed such price-hiking pro-labor measures, keep insisting they can deliver “affordability.”

But when Republicans, who are supposed to champion low costs and free markets, back measures like these, it’s not just ironic; it’s a betrayal.