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“Everything is on the table as far as we are concerned.”
Only five Republicans voted for the measure: co-sponsors Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith (NJ) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania), as well as representatives John Katko (NY) and Don Young (Alaska). One Democrat voted against: Henry Cuellar (Texas), an aide said.
Advancing the bill ends days of behind-the-scenes wrangling among Democratic leaders after a group of moderate members lobbied for last-minute changes to the bill. On Monday night, the Main Democrats had agreed to include an amendment that would consider the impact of the bill on performing workers, which the centrist bloc – led by Rep. Blue Dog, Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Who voted against the bill in the last session – described as a victory.
“There were concerns about the flexibility aspect of PRO, and whether people could opt out if it didn’t suit their personal needs and circumstances,” Representative Susan Wild (D-Pa.), Who was among those supporting the amendment, told POLITICO.
This change, Wild said, would help address some of the Senate’s many concerns, adding, “There’s a way to do it if we all really focus on it and don’t insist on being purists.”
“If people need to do things in order to be able to support the bill, I totally agree with that,” said Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.). “I don’t see this as a change.”
The legislation – which would make it easier for workers to join and form unions by empowering the National Labor Relations Board to impose fines and extending collective bargaining rights to independent contractors – is a real-time example of the thin line Biden has to walk while he works. to appease both the pro-union forces he aligned himself with and the business groups that helped him win.
“People are realizing that unions are important,” House Education and Labor President Bobby Scott (D-Va.) Told POLITICO. “They noticed it during the pandemic, when the working conditions were unfair and dangerous.”
Businesses, fiercely opposed to the PRO law, spent the days leading up to its passage lobbying against it. More than 150 trade associations, including the very influential Chamber of Commerce, sent a letter to lawmakers last week urging them to vote against the legislation, which they said “would cost millions of jobs in the United States, threaten to vital supply chains and dramatically reduce opportunities for entrepreneurs. and small businesses. “
Employers “are deeply concerned about the PRO’s intrusions into worker privacy and restrictions on workplace communication – among many other issues,” said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of National Association of Manufacturers. and more difficult to foster positive and inclusive work cultures. “
Republicans echo many of the same concerns, worrying that the bill – which Rep. Virginia Foxx, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, has dubbed the union bosses pro – will cost employers and kill jobs. They also dispute that the bill would prevent state laws on the right to work, which ensure that no worker can be required to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment.
It is “a left-wing wishlist of union bosses’ priorities that undermines the rights of workers by forcing them to contribute into a union system, whether or not they want to be represented by a union,” Foxx said.
The PRO Act “is another attack on state rights,” said Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa). Iowa is a state of the right to work.
The unions have leaned their weight on the legislation, which leaders have repeatedly described as one of their top priorities for a Biden administration. Indeed, the executive council of the AFL-CIO – the largest federation of unions in the country – plans to meet on Wednesday to discuss its position on eliminating filibuster, possibly the only way forward to see promulgate the PRO law.
“I suppose that [Senate passage] requires getting rid of the filibuster or finding a way around it, ”Levin said.
HELP Senate Speaker Patty Murray (D-Wash.) Told POLITICO she plans to “fight hard to make sure that we honor the essential workers who have kept us going through this pandemic by breaking through the finish line at PRO Act.
“As workers continue to bear the brunt of this pandemic, it has never been more important to ensure that they can fight for better pay, quality health care, a safer workplace and a secure retirement, ”she said.
Prior to its passage, lawmakers passed a Democratic Amendment Package containing the Murphy Amendment, among others. They rejected a series of Republican amendments.
The move coincides with the continued efforts of Amazon workers to form a union at one of the retail giant’s facilities in Alabama. Biden was notably silent on the issue until February, when he posted a video expressing his support for the unions. Although he refused to mention Amazon by name, it was nonetheless hailed as the most pro-union statement from a sitting US president.
The House first pushed the bill forward in February 2020 after languishing for months amid the same concerns raised this session: concerns from moderate Democrats that it was anti-business and relentlessly denigrating groups such than the Chamber of Commerce, which called it a litany of almost all the failed ideas of the past 30 years of labor policy. “But it was never picked up by then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Biden vowed during the election campaign that he would see the legislation enacted and reiterated his support for the legislation on Monday with a full-throated administrative policy statement encouraging passage of the House.
“We must all remember that the national labor relations law does not simply say that we must not cripple unions or simply tolerate them. He said we should encourage unions, ”Biden said in a statement Tuesday. “The PRO Act would take critical steps to help restore that intention.”
“We have a champion who, more than any of his recent predecessors, understands that unions are not just another constituency group that only exists during election cycles, and his campaign rhetoric has been scope in the Oval Office, ”said Trumka. “He’s a president who jumps at the chance to tell a room full of CEOs that he is a trade unionist. He released the most pro-union statement of any president since the FDR, and just yesterday he chose to double down.
“To borrow a slightly edited quote from Joe Biden, that’s a big deal.”
Unions have fought to enact labor law reform since 1947, when a Republican Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act and in so doing made changes to the national labor relations law that activists in the work considered anti-union. But the efforts have not yet succeeded.
Even under former President Barack Obama, a package containing many provisions similar to the PRO Act – the Employee Free Choice Act – got stuck in Congress as his administration focused its efforts elsewhere.
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