On March 5, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Bobby Scott reintroduced the ABC-opposed PRO Act in the 119th Congress. 

ABC issued a statement opposing the PRO Act. The ABC-led Coalition for a Democratic Workplace also sent a letter and statement to the Hill urging members Congress to oppose the bill.

This radical legislation includes dozens of provisions that would violate workers’ free choice and privacy rights, force unions on employees who have voted against such representation, cost millions of American jobs, threaten vital supply chains and greatly hinder our economy. The bill boosts union membership at the expense of American workers and small businesses.

Of the many radical provisions in the PRO Act, the bill includes provisions that:

• Strip away workers’ privacy rights and key protections guaranteeing workers’ free choice through secret ballots in union representation elections
• Curb opportunities for people to work independently through independent contractor roles
• Revoke independently enacted state right-to-work protections and require workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment
• Change the legal standard for joint-employer liability, reducing opportunities for our country’s small and local businesses through subcontracts, licensing and franchising
• Violate employers’ right to attorney-client confidentiality on complex labor law issues, making it harder for businesses, particularly small businesses, to secure legal advice
• Impose government control over private contracts
• Infringe on the due process rights of employers
• Remove secondary boycott protections

The reintroduction of this legislation represents the latest attempt to implement labor law policies that have previously been rejected by the judicial system, opposed on a bipartisan basis in Congress and/or withdrawn by the agencies that prior administrations tried to use to implement the policies unilaterally. All of these entities realized those policies violated the law, exceeded the authority granted to the implementing agencies or would cause serious damage to the American workplace.