On July 25 Kamala Harris re-stated her pledge to labor honchos that if elected she will impose the “PRO Act” on the American people. The legislation would ban Right-to-Work laws — including in Right-to-Work swing states WI, GA, AZ, and NV — and destroy the livelihood of independent contractors nationwide.
The Protecting the Right to Organize Act would increase the power of union bosses at the expense of American workers.
The PRO Act would:
Destroy independent contractors and freelancers by 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 imposed top-down from Washington DC. Click here to read hundreds of personal stories of independent contractors harmed by this draconian law in California.
Violate worker privacy by forcing employers to give union organizers 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.
Ban state Right-to-Work laws, which protect 162 million Americans in 26 states from being forced to pay union dues just to get a job. In addition to her repeated vow to impose the PRO Act, Harris has made clear her desire to ban Right-to-Work from her perch in Washington DC.
Take away workers’ rights to a secret ballot election. The PRO Act would change union elections so that union bosses could walk around collecting cards from workers to demonstrate support for the union, rather than holding a secret ballot election. This will subject workers to intimidation from union boss henchmen who can approach workers in person to demand signatures instead of allowing them to vote in private. Coupled with the forced transfer of workers’ personal information to labor unions, workers may be intimidated or threatened by union activists who visit them at their own homes.
Severely harm franchisees and their employees by codifying the expanded joint employer standard.
Deprive workers of adequate unionization debate time by codifying shortened representation election time frames, tilting the field in favor of union bosses during unionization elections.
The PRO Act, introduced as H.R. 20 in the House of Representatives and S. 567 in the Senate, is the Democratic Party’s grab-bag of handouts to organized labor bosses. The primary sponsors are Congressman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the bill has the support of nearly the entire Democrat caucus: 214 additional Democrats in the House and 48 Democrats in the Senate are cosponsors of the bill.
Despite having near-universal support among Democrats, the bill has failed to gain traction in the current Congress and also failed to pass when introduced in previous years.
Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democrat nominee for President, was a cosponsor of the PRO Act during her time as the most liberal member of the Senate. During her tenure as Vice President, Harris has reiterated her support for this harmful legislation.
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 Democratic 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.
Visit Kamalanomics.org for more policy documentation.