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By Mark Gruenberg
WASHINGTON—Turning aside a multitude of Republican “poison pill” schemes, the Democratic-run U.S. House stands poised to pass the Protect The Right To Organize (PRO) Act, the nation’s most-comprehensive pro-worker labor law reform in decades.
As strenuous worker lobbying by e-mail and toll-free phone preceded the vote, the head of the labor-environmentalist BlueGreen Alliance said he believes the “green jobs” his group pushes for will increase in number, pay well, and likely be union jobs, too, thanks to the legislation.
But alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh also concedes, from past service in Democratic President Barack Obama’s White House, that the PRO Act won’t move in the GOP-run Senate. “We’re laying groundwork for the future” for both unions and greens, he says.
Pro-worker lawmakers and union legislative representatives crafted the PRO Act (HR2474). The legislation would largely undo 72 years of GOP anti-worker laws, court rulings, and National Labor Relations Board decisions that have hamstrung organizing and made it almost impossible for workers to join together and fight for themselves.
Among its reforms, the PRO Act would repeal the section of the GOP-passed 1947 Taft-Hartley Act that permits states to enact so-called “right to work” laws, which let workers use union benefits and protections without joining or paying one red cent for them....
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