{"id":2444,"date":"2021-05-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uniontrack.com\/blog\/?p=2444"},"modified":"2021-05-03T01:11:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T01:11:41","slug":"pro-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniontrack.com\/blog\/pro-act","title":{"rendered":"The Ongoing Push to Pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ken Green
CEO & Founder
UnionTrack<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers are growing more supportive of joining unions, yet it has become increasingly difficult to do so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a 2017 survey conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cornell University<\/a>, nearly half of nonunion workers would join a union (up from about 33 percent in 1977 and 1995) and more than 80 percent of union workers would vote to continue union representation. Yet, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>, only 10.8 percent of workers belonged to a union in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If 80 percent of workers want to join unions, why are so few actually in them? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because \u201cthe discouraging reality is that current labor law makes it all but impossible for these workers to form or join unions at their jobs,\u201d writes political scientist Alexander Hertel-Fernandez<\/a>. \u201cAnd even in the rare cases where workers do manage to start unions, these organizations are sharply limited in the representation that they can provide to workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act<\/a> would change this. It would make it easier for workers to unionize and pave the way for unions to provide essential bargaining services to workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe PRO Act would finally give workers the right to organize and form unions that they’re supposed to have had under law for years and years, but that employers have routinely stripped them of because employers have broken and bent labor law to such an extent that the current labor law is virtually meaningless,\u201d says Lane Windham<\/a>, associate director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why labor leaders and advocates have been lobbying for its passage. But even with all the support it has garnered from lawmakers, lobbyists and workers, getting the PRO Act through both chambers of Congress has been challenging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The PRO Act is an \u201cAmbitious\u201d Piece of Pro-worker Legislation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To combat decades of erosion to workers\u2019 rights, labor-friendly lawmakers introduced a piece of legislation that focuses solely on strengthening workers\u2019 rights to bargain. Dubbed by Sharon Block<\/a>, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, as \u201cthe most ambitious labor law reform to get to the floor of the house in a very long time,\u201d the PRO Act is a comprehensive bill that addresses key issues workers confront when trying to organize for bargaining power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe PRO Act would protect and empower workers to exercise our freedom to organize a bargain,\u201d says American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Richard Trumka<\/a>. \u201cIt’s a game changer. If you really want to correct inequality in this country \u2014 wages and wealth inequality, opportunity and inequality of power \u2014 passing the PRO Act is absolutely essential to doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Key Issues Addressed in the PRO Act<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While the PRO Act certainly wouldn\u2019t solve every problem for workers, it does seek to close legal loopholes that employers take advantage of to keep workers from exercising their rights to unionize and bargain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation \u201cmodernizes and updates a lot of the loopholes and the brokenness of U.S. labor law,\u201d asserts Ryan Kekeris<\/a>, an organizer for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT). It does this by addressing key issues, including<\/p>\n\n\n\n