Background
On March 5, 2025, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Representative Bobby Scott, D-Va., introduced S. 852/H.R.20, the ABC-opposed Protecting the Right to Organize Act. The legislation would violate workers’ free choice and privacy rights, force unions on employees who have voted against such representation, cost millions of American jobs and threaten vital supply chains.
It does this by:
- Stripping away workers’ free choice in union elections by instituting a backdoor “card check,” which would, in many circumstances, replace union elections with a system that forces employees to sign union authorization cards in front of coworkers and union organizers.
- Exposing workers’ personal privacy by mandating that businesses turn over workers’ personal information, such as cell phone numbers, home addresses and even assigned shifts to union organizers.
- Codifying the NLRB’s controversial Browning-Ferris Industries joint-employer standard that has threatened our country’s small and local businesses. If implemented, the standard would affect 44% of private sector employees, lead to between $17.2 billion and $33.3 billion in lost annual output for the franchise business sector alone and complicate many business-to-business contracts and arrangements, causing particular harm to small businesses.
- Curbing opportunities for people to work independently through gig economy platforms or more traditional independent contractor roles. The provision would use the “ABC” test, the standard adopted in California’s disastrous AB 5, to forcibly reclassify many independent contractors as employees. American Action Forum research found that a national version of AB 5 could put up to 8.5% of gross domestic product at risk.
- Eliminating right-to-work protections for workers across the country, including in the 26 states that have passed such laws. Repealing right-to-work protections, would strip millions of employees of the right to refrain from joining a union, hindering private sector output, employment growth and business migration.
- Interfering with attorney-client confidentiality and make it harder for businesses, particularly small businesses, to secure legal advice on complex labor law matters.
- Strip “secondary boycott” protections that prevent unions from using their antitrust exemptions and immunity from certain state laws to target businesses for anticompetitive purposes other than organizing. This would allow unions to protest and boycott companies that are not directly involved in a labor dispute by eliminating the NLRA’s 70-year ban on secondary boycott activity. If this provision is signed into law, unions could target not only the employer involved in a labor dispute but also any company that does business with that employer.
Desired Outcome
While the ABC-opposed bill will not come up for a vote in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, it has unfortunately received bipartisan support. It is critical that all members of Congress recognize the devastating impact of this bill and its policies.
ABC and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace are leading the fight against the PRO Act, engaging with key audiences to stop this attempt to implement radical labor policies.
Visit freeenterprisealliance.org to learn more and take action.