What’s the PRO Act, and How Would It Affect Workers?

After passing the US House of Representatives more than a year ago and languishing in the Senate ever since, the PRO Act is getting a renewed push now, particularly from unions who want to modernize the nearly 90-year-old labor law.

Here’s a quick refresher on what it is, and how Iowa’s elected officials voted or are likely to vote on it:

What is the PRO Act?

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021  resolution was introduced in February 2021 in the US House of Representatives and passed in March.

It would amend three congressional acts related to collective bargaining and workplace organizing to expand the right of workers to strike, and place limits on employers hindering union organization, among other provisions. (Read Iowa Starting Line’s previous coverage here.)

What would it do?

Among its larger provisions, the PRO Act would:

• Allow more types of workers and employers to fall under the fair labor standards;
• Allows unions to encourage “secondary strikes,” or strikes initiated by members of a different union;
• Prohibits employers from penalizing unions for secondary strikes;
• Prohibits employers from mandating “anti-union” meetings or employment agreements that waive employees’ right to join a union;
• Gives “whistleblower” protections to employees for engaging in union activity;
• Allows employees to vote in union elections by phone or online.

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Notably, the resolution would also “require all employees represented by the bargaining unit to contribute fees to the labor organization for the cost of such representation, notwithstanding a state law to the contrary,” according to the summary.

That’s a direct shot across the bow at the 27 states that have so-called right-to-work laws, including Iowa, that tell unions they can’t mandate workers to join or pay dues when hired.

Why was it introduced?

According to unions such as the AFL-CIO, which lobbied for the resolution’s passage for more than a year, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 they say built the nation’s middle class has been “broken” over the last several decades.

“Ever since its passage, corporations and their political allies have conspired to render the law toothless,” the union says on its website. “In recent decades, employers have been able to violate the NLRA with impunity, routinely denying workers our basic right to join with our co-workers for fairness on the job.”

That’s been among the reasons membership in unions is at an all-time low, unions say. In Iowa, 6.5% of all workers were members of a union in 2021, down from 11.2% in 2011. In 1964, that number was nearly 28%.

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Did my representative vote yes or no on it?

House Resolution 842 passed in March of 2021 on a mostly party-line vote, 225 to 206, in the Democratically-controlled House.

Iowa’s House delegation split neatly along party lines. Eastern Iowa Reps. Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, as well as northwestern Iowa’s Randy Feenstra, all Republicans, voted against it.

Hinson offered two amendments to the bill that were rejected. One would have added whistleblower protection to those reporting violations of the act, while the other would have exempted workers from paying dues for financial hardship as well as exempted anyone who “received any kind of federal COVID relief under the CARES Act or the December coronavirus response package,” theoretically exempted most workers.

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“The PRO Act is a radical gift to union bosses at the expense of workers and small businesses in Iowa,” Hinson said in a March 2021 statement. “Iowan and American workers who need every extra dollar right now shouldn’t be forced to pay a union.”

Iowa’s lone Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne, one of the resolution’s cosponsors, voted with the majority to pass it.

“Iowans deserve a voice in their workplace,” she said last year. “The PRO Act strengthens workers’ rights to collectively bargain, improves protections for union activities, cracks down on unfair practices that disadvantage workers and unions, and bolsters our processes for resolving labor disputes.”

What’s happening in the Senate?

Since House passage, the bill has languished for more than a year in the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee.

Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a June 2021 call with reporters that the PRO Act’s conflict with right-to-work laws in Iowa and elsewhere didn’t sit right with him.

“It violates freedom of association of First Amendment right,” he said. “If you’ve got to pay union dues, and you don’t believe in unions, it would turn the ‘Land of the Free’ into the ‘land of the fee.'”

Sen. Joni Ernst has not made a statement publicly on the legislation. She did not immediately respond to Iowa Starting Line’s request for comment.

By Amie Rivers
3/29/22

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