Tell Congress: Pass the PRO Act and Stand Up for Workers Rights!
For far too long, American labor laws and protections have needed to be updated to restore workers’ rights to form and join unions and negotiate with their employers.
That’s why we need Congress to pass the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize, the PRO Act.
The PRO Act is the most significant piece of legislation for empowering workers since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) and among the highest and longest held priorities for the U.S. labor movement. In the time since the NLRA’s enactment, workers have endured an ongoing assault on their rights to organize a union in their workplace and exercise their union rights. The PRO Act levels the playing field between workers who want to form unions and employers who exploit weaknesses in the current law to frustrate union organizing drives and interfere with workers’ legal rights to organize and bargain collectively.
Working Americans overwhelmingly support labor unions and the right to organize and bargain collectively. In a Gallup survey contected last year, 71% of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest union approval rating since 1965. Yet, even as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) shows a 53% increase in union organizing between October 2021 and September 2022, the unionization rate in the private sector fell to 6% in 2022 and the overall unionization rate fell to 10.3%. A 2023 Economic Policy Institute report noted that “private-sector employers spend nearly $340 million per year hiring union avoidance advisers to help them prevent employees from organizing,” and that “Employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns and one out of five union election campaigns involve a charge that a worker was illegally fired for union activity.”
In late February 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate reintroduced the PRO Act. The PRO Act is sponsored by Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) in the House and by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee.
President Biden has repeatedly stated his strong support and intention of signing the PRO Act and urged Congress to pass it and send the legislation to his desk. Currently, the PRO Act has 214 Representatives in the House supporting the legislation — just four Representatives shy of the support needed to pass the House. The Senate version currently has 48 Senators supporting the legislation. See if your Representative and your Senators are cosponsoring the PRO Act.
In the upcoming weeks, IFPTE members and supporters will join the other unions, allies, and community partners to request Congress to pass the PRO Act.
PRO ACT SNAPSHOT
The PRO Act Helps Ensure Employees Have the Right to Organize a Union and Bargain for Improvements at Work by:
1. Holding Employers Accountable When They Violate Workers’ Rights
Allows workers to recover full back pay, front pay, consequential damages and additional damages equal to double the owed amount.
Imposes civil penalties up to $50,000 per violation and provides a private right of action for workers who want to enforce their rights in court; holds employers personally liable when they know about violations but refuse to address them.
Requires employers to disclose how much they’re spending on union-busting.
2. Ensuring that Most Workers Are Included Under the National Labor Relations Act’s Protections
Amends the definition of employer so that entities that control material aspects of employees’ work are actually at the bargaining table.
Adopts a clear test to determine employee status so that workers are not misclassified as independent contractors and therefore unable to organize.
Narrows the definition of supervisor so that employees who make routine, commonsense workplace decisions are not excluded from their unions.
Guarantees that workers are eligible for recovery regardless of immigration status.
3. Protecting Collective Action and Removing Barriers to Worker Voice
Ensures that employers cannot:
Fire and permanently replace workers who are on strike.
Lockout, suspend or withhold work from employees to stop them from striking.
Tell employees that they are independent contractors when they are actually employees.
Force employees to attend anti-union messaging meetings.
Change work conditions, pay or benefits while negotiating a union contract.
Force employees to waive their right to collective and class legal action.
Prohibit employees from using work computers for collective action.
Empowers employees to stand in solidarity with other workers through efforts like picketing, striking or boycotting.
Protects strikes of any duration, scope or frequency.
Requires employers to notify each new employee of their rights under the NLRA and to post those rights in the workplace.
Allows unions to collect fees to cover the expenses of collective bargaining, regardless of state “right to work” laws.
4. Strengthening Employees’ Bargaining Rights
Adopts new procedures to make sure unions can reach a first contract. And requires:
Collective bargaining to begin within 10 days of the certified union’s request to do so.
Mediation if no contract is reached within 90 days.
Mandatory arbitration of a two-year contract if no contract is reached through mediation.
5. Modernizing the Union Election and Enforcement Processes
Requires employers to provide contact information for all relevant employees before the union elections take place and allows union elections to take place by mail, electronically, or at a convenient location.
Keeps employers from intervening in administrative hearings on union representation.
Ensures workers can form commonsense bargaining units.
Requires the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to order the employer to bargain if the union wins the election, or if the employer interferes with the election and a majority of employees have already designated the union as their desired bargaining representative.
Ensures new elections do not take place if:
The union and employer are still bargaining.
The employer voluntarily recognized the union.
The union and successor employer are just starting to bargain.
The time window for filing a petition has closed.
Pauses union elections when unfair labor practice charges are filed.
Requires the NLRB to seek a U.S. District Court injunction when employers may have unlawfully fired workers or otherwise interfered with their rights under the NLRA and makes NLRB orders self-enforcing and appealable within 30 days.
Additional Information and Resources
President Biden On Workers' Rights to Organize & Unionize, 2021 [2:20 video]
Three Reasons Why the PRO Act Won’t Destroy Freelancing or the Gig Economy, Economic Policy Institute,
The Union Advantage for Young Workers: Higher Wages and More Benefits, Center for Economic Policy and Research
Why Workers Need the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, Economic Policy Institute