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CityAndStatePA .com
September 2021
Bargaining chips
T
he labor movement may not ever have a better opportunity to obtain long-sought labor law reforms than they do right now. President Joe Biden ran for office in 2020 promising not just to protect union jobs, but to be the strongest pro-union president to ever occupy the Oval Office. And now, with Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress, labor leaders are hoping they can capitalize on the current political environment in Washington, D.C. At the top of their wish list is passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, also known as the PRO Act, a priority shared by Biden and members within his administration. The measure is a sweeping pro-union bill that proponents say would be the first major labor law overhaul of its kind since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Sponsored by Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia, the PRO Act would allow the National Labor Relations Board to levy financial penalties against businesses when a worker is wrongfully fired or experiences “serious economic harm.” It would also effectively neuter state rightto-work laws, which allow workers to opt out of unions and avoid paying dues while maintaining the pay and benefits associated with collective bargaining agreements. Additionally, it would require employers to finalize a union’s first collective bargaining agreement through mediation and arbitration if in dispute, while also barring businesses from requiring workers to attend so-called “captive audience” meetings, where employees are forced to attend gatherings intended to discourage unionization under threat of losing their jobs. When taken together, the legislation represents the most comprehensive set of labor law reforms in decades and would strengthen the power that unions and its members have in the workplace, labor leaders say. “It’ll be the first major piece of prounion legislation since the National Labor Relations Act passed,” said Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. “We had unions prior to the National Labor Relations Act and obviously folks were negotiating and had collective bargaining agreements – but the National Labor Relations Act really set the frame-
The PRO Act would transfer more power to labor unions and weaken ‘right-to-work’ laws, making it an iffy prospect in Congress.
work for folks to be able to do it without being beaten or killed or all the things that happened pre-National Labor Relations Act around organizing.” But a series of subsequent laws – such as the Taft-Hartley Act and Landrum-Griffin Act – undermined the original provisions of the NRLA, Bloomingdale said, and allowed states to pass right-to-work laws. These laws prohibited both companies and unions from requiring workers to be union members. Bloomingdale said the PRO Act would help rebuild the power of workers to stand up to fear and intimidation in the workplace. “The biggest reason people don’t join unions is fear, because most of them have a mortgage or rent or other expenses and they can’t afford to be fired for union activity. So, it’s hard to get people to take a stand,” Bloomingdale said. “Even though they want that dignity, they also need that paycheck. When we eliminate and make it personal to supervisors [that] when you break the law, you’re going to pay, then maybe we get some of the fear out of organizing.” Under the PRO Act, union elections would also be permitted to be held remotely or through the mail. Employers would also be barred from permanently replacing workers who participate in strikes, and workers would be allowed to participate in “secondary strikes,” which allow workers to strike in support of workers at other companies. Wendell Young IV, president of UFCW Local 1776 Keystone State, said the PRO Act would restore protections originally included in the National Labor Relations Act that have been whittled away by court rulings and other actions. “The law has been diluted and watered down through court decisions that administrative law agency decisions, and workers really, truly no longer have the rights that the law talks about,” Young said. “So, what the PRO Act will do is restore the law. It’ll hold companies and company executives responsible for wrongdoing. It’ll have meaningful penalties for those individuals, including the CEOs, and the companies.” The proposal is beloved by labor leaders, as it would afford unions greater bargaining power and more organizing flexibility, but it has also earned considerable opposition from business groups and organizations dedicated to helping workers leave unions.
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By Justin Sweitzer
FTER THE HOUSE passed the bill in March, Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry President Gene Barr issued a blistering statement calling the PRO Act “a radical piece of legislation that would upend decades of established labor law, significantly stacking the deck in favor of unions.” Barr said the bill “will encourage unfair lawsuits, stifle employers’ right to communicate with their workforce during union elections and force an unrealistic standard for hiring independent contractors that will also hurt freelancers and gig workers,”
