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Congress Has Hands in Union Pockets
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The past decade has been marked by a rise of states passing Right-to-Work laws. This legislation ensures that an employee’s job is not contingent upon the worker joining a union or paying union dues. Right to work laws protect an individual’s freedom from union abuses, like funneling union money to candidates they don’t personally support or by being prevented from advocating for their own needs and instead having to rely on union leadership to bargain for their needs.
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More recently, in 2018 the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME, that it is a violation of a public employees’ First Amendment guarantee to force an individual to pay union dues.
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In light of this decision, the House of Representatives will be voting on the PRO Act or The Protecting Right to Organize Act of 2019 (H.R. 2474). This legislation is a gift to union bosses and further entangles union money into Congressional races. Among its provisions, the legislation eliminates all state Right-to-Work laws, will enact California’s definition of “independent contractor,” prohibiting an individual the ability to work independently and threatening the emerging share economy, and allows illegal immigrants to sue employers and collect financial rewards. Instead of favoring unions, Congress should be enacting legislation that helps workers and the economy. According to the American Action Forum there are many economic benefits to the decline of unions including:
- an additional $115.9 billion in real economic output;
- 393,189 additional jobs;
- an average $6.08 increase in weekly earnings; and
- an additional $35.1 billion in total wage earnings.
As Representatives Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Mike Walberg (R-MI) said:
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“Committee Democrats are ignoring union corruption and lobbying their leadership to pass radical legislation that would overturn all state right-to-work laws — forcing workers who don’t want to join a union to hand over their hard-earned union dues to possibly fund illegal activity.”
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You can find more information on H.R. 2474 here. In the meantime, please join us in asking your Representative to vote NO on the PRO Act to ensure all worker’s individual rights are protected.
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