[The PRO Act passed the House Committee on Education and Labor on
September 25 on a party-line vote. But two months later, Pelosi has
still not moved to bring the bill to the House floor, nor has she
given any indication of when she would.] [[link removed]]

NANCY PELOSI PUSHES THE HOUSE TO PASS USMCA, BUT NEGLECTS A BILL WITH
BROAD SUPPORT TO STRENGTHEN UNIONS  
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Rachel M. Cohen
December 2, 2019
The Intercept
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_ The PRO Act passed the House Committee on Education and Labor on
September 25 on a party-line vote. But two months later, Pelosi has
still not moved to bring the bill to the House floor, nor has she
given any indication of when she would. _

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a news conference in March., J. Scott
Applewhite / AP)

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made no secret of her desire to pass
the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement by the end of the year, telling
reporters recently that it would be her goal
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for the House to vote on it before Christmas. Centrist Democrats have
been insisting privately
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that a quick passage for the trade deal is necessary for moderate
members of Congress to win their competitive reelections in 2020, to
show they can “do something
[[link removed]-].”
Unions have made clear, though, that from their perspective, USMCA
lacks real labor enforcement mechanisms, which could undermine the
whole deal, further drag down wages, and eliminate more jobs.

Meanwhile, a top priority for labor has been sitting quietly on
Pelosi’s desk and, unlike USMCA, already commands enough support to
get it over the House finish line. The Protecting the Right to
Organize Act would be the most comprehensive rewrite of U.S. labor law
in decades. It would eliminate right-to-work laws, impose new
penalties on employers who retaliate against union organizing, crack
down on worker misclassification, and establish new rules so that
employers cannot delay negotiating collective bargaining contracts.
Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., in May, it already has 215
co-sponsors in the House and 40 in the Senate.

The PRO Act passed the House Committee on Education and Labor on
September 25 on a party-line vote. But two months later, Pelosi has
still not moved to bring the bill to the House floor, nor has she
given any indication of when she would. Her office did not return
requests for comment.
 

“I don’t know exactly what the holdup is — it is taking longer
than it should given the number of co-sponsors that we have,” said
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus.
“Many other bills have come to the floor with fewer co-sponsors than
this one.”

Jayapal told The Intercept that she believes that House leadership
remains committed to the bill and that she and the Progressive Caucus
have been pressuring them
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bring it to the floor. “I think it is really critical for us as
Democrats,” she said. “And anyone on the Democratic side who is
wary of expanding collective bargaining I think should be thinking
really clearly about why that would be.”

Rep. Mark Pocan, the other Progressive Caucus co-chair, said they’re
working hard to make sure the bill gets calendared, but acknowledged
that “there’s probably somewhat limited bandwidth” for the PRO
Act given the intense focus on hashing out labor provisions in the
trade deal, and the House’s desire to finish passing the
drug-pricing bill.

“Because of that, we’re probably having a more difficult time
getting an exact date. There’s a lot of work happening right now,”
he said.

Dan Mauer, director of government affairs for the Communications
Workers of America, told The Intercept that the delay to bring the
vote to the floor has been “very frustrating” and that his union
has made it clear to House leadership that members would be “very
unhappy” if the House does not prioritize the bill by the end of the
year.

“We get it’s hard, there’s a lot of stuff on people’s plates,
and at the same time, this bill already has a lot of demonstrated
support,” he said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers,
told The Intercept over email that her union is also urging Congress
to pass the PRO Act before the end of the year. “Currently,
employers have carte blanche to abuse their power and dissuade workers
from joining a union, but consider the flipside — in cities and
states with a strong union presence, wages, benefits, and job security
are better across the board,” she said. “Congress can do something
concrete to rebalance the ledger, and the time to act is now.”

A repeal of right-to-work would mean that states could no longer
impose bans on unions charging private-sector workers mandatory fees
for collective bargaining, even if they are not dues-paying union
members. In 2018, the Supreme Court effectively nationalized
right-to-work in the public sector when it ruled in Janus v. AFSCME
that no fee or payment may be deducted from a public-sector worker
unless the employee “affirmatively consents” to pay.

While Pelosi has voiced concern that the impeachment against President
Donald Trump might distract from advancing the Democrats’
legislative agenda, she is not moving the PRO Act, which is in a
strong position for passage. The legislation builds on the House
Democrats’ 2017 “Better Deal” agenda, which included many labor
commitments also laid out in the PRO Act. “We want to put this out
to the public,” Pelosi said at the time
[[link removed]].
“Public sentiment is everything.”

Aside from having co-sponsors, public sentiment for unions is also at
one of its highest points in the last 50 years, according to
Gallup’s annual polling. Sixty-four percent of Americans approve of
unions, up 16 points since 2009.

While the House did vote to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an
hour this summer, union advocates also felt that House leadership
dragged its feet on bringing that bill to a full vote. It passed the
House labor committee in March
[[link removed]] but
didn’t come to the floor until July.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business lobbying
group, is spending thousands of dollars ginning up opposition to the
PRO Act, running ads on Facebook and Twitter. The chamber is also
spending heavily on ads in support of USMCA, urging viewers to tell
Congress to pass the trade deal.

“I do worry that by delaying [on the PRO Act], we just give the
chamber and others the opportunity to prevent passing this
legislation,” Jayapal said.

The last time Congress was in a position to pass a major rewrite to
labor law was in 2009, when Democrats unsuccessfully pushed the
Employee Free Choice Act. Labor leaders disagree over why EFCA
ultimately failed. Some blamed moderate Democrats, others blamed
then-President Barack Obama, and still others chalked it up to a weak
ground game from labor and progressives in holding Congress
accountable in the face of intense corporate opposition. The death of
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, who was chair of the Senate labor committee
and then succeeded by a Republican, surely didn’t help. Neither did
aggressive lobbying by the chamber. “This will be Armageddon,” the
vice president for labor policy at the Chamber of Commerce complained
at the time.
[[link removed]]

Some unions appear more resigned to the idea that it’s already too
late for the bill to pass this year.

“The Teamsters would love the PRO Act to be considered by the full
House as soon as possible, although time is running short for that to
happen in 2019,” a spokesperson told The Intercept over email.

AFSCME President Lee Saunders also praised the House for its efforts
so far to support workers, but avoided saying that his union expects
to see the PRO Act wrapped up by the holidays. “We expect progress
to continue” on bills like the PRO Act, and the Public Service
Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would bring labor reform to the
public-sector workforce, he told The Intercept. “With this political
and grassroots landscape, we have every expectation that our elected
officials will give working people the freedom to shrink the widening
wealth gap and the voice they need to strengthen their communities.”

Mauer of CWA was more direct in raising the potential consequences for
not moving swiftly, pointing to the need to galvanize union members
before the next election.

“If you want real strong worker excitement that will get union
activists excited for 2020, this is what we need to get it; the PRO
Act is really it,” he said. “We absolutely think this is a key
thing, not just legislatively but politically.”

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