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Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) urges members of the House of Representatives to vote against the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act (H.R. 842). This harmful legislation would increase the power of organized labor at the expense of American workers. 

If signed into law, some of the key provisions of the PRO Act would:

  • Violate worker privacy by forcing employers to give union organizer sensitive employee contact information, including home addresses, cell phone and landline numbers, and email addresses. This would allow union bosses to intimidate workers into joining unions at homes or workplaces. 
     
  • Nullify state Right-to-Work laws, which protect 166 million Americans in 27 states from being forced to pay union dues just to get a job. 
     
  • Change union elections to allow union bosses to collect cards from workers to demonstrate support for the union, rather than holding a secret ballot election.
     
  • Nationalizing California’s “ABC” test for independent contractors, which has forced the mass reclassification of California’s independent contractors and limited freelance opportunities statewide. More than 57 million freelancers could risk losing work if the ABC test were adopted at the federal level. 
     
  • Codify the expanded joint employer standard, severely harming franchises and their employees.
     
  • Codify shortened representation election time frames, giving the unions a large advantage in these elections by shortening the time for debate over unionization.
     

In addition, the PRO Act would increase costs for employers, harming businesses and consumers. According to the American Action Forum, the independent contractor provision would impact 8.5% of GDP and cost between $3.5 billion and $12.1 billion annually. The joint employer provision would cost between $17.2 billion and $33.3 billion annually for the franchise business sector and affect 44% of private sector employees. Finally, the provision that restricts employers from replacing strikers permanently could cost employers an additional $1.9 billion every year.

The PRO Act is a return on the investment of the hundreds of millions of dollars that Big Labor poured into the Democrat party’s campaigns to capture the House, Senate, and White House. Employers will be able to force workers into unions as a condition of employment, and union bosses will have access to personal information to bully workers into compliance. Tens of millions of independent contractors would face losing their jobs. 

ATR opposes the PRO Act and urges all members of Congress to vote NO.