Key Vote NO on the PRO Act, H.R. 842

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote NO on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, H.R. 2474. The PRO Act is one of the most anti-worker and anti-business bills that we have ever seen brought to the House floor, and is an updated version of the PRO Act passed along a near-party line vote during the last Congress in February 2020. Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the PRO Act is a giveaway to labor unions that would harm our economy and would especially target workers who choose not to join unions.

Notably, it would do so by undermining all 27 states — more than half of the country — that have right-to-work laws. Federally coercing all private-sector workers to pay fees to labor unions violates individuals’ First Amendment rights and threatens the increased employment rates commonly seen in right-to-work states. The only thing that this bill is “PRO” is pro-union.

It also attempts to apply to the whole country a horrific standard set by California, of all states, regarding worker classification. The PRO Act would codify California’s disastrous “ABC” test that determines whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. This law throttles the gig economy by making it more difficult for companies to contract with individuals. It should be noted that many independent contractors prefer their status to being a full-time employee.

Even ultra-liberals in California have come to realize how harmful their law, Assembly Bill 5, is to workers. In their state, it has hit contractors harder than the unions that pushed the law admitted, forcing many companies to choose between hiring their contractors full-time or laying them off. Unsurprisingly, an avalanche of layoffs ensued. Especially now, as our country seeks recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns across the states, promoting employment of any nature is essential. Unfortunately, though, unions and Democrats continue to push these types of laws that make it easier to unionize workers, at the expense of Americans’ paychecks nationwide.

Furthermore, the PRO Act undermines privacy for workers by mandating that employers share their employees’ personal information with unions, with few to no restrictions on what unions can then do with the employees’ information. Such a prospect is terrifying. Needless to say, the PRO Act would do nothing but undermine the rights of workers it claims to help. This is par for the course for the progressive left that has long bowed to the whims of labor unions.

FreedomWorks will count the vote on the PRO Act, H.R. 842, when calculating our Scorecard for 2021 and reserves the right to score any related votes and weight any votes. The scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes members of the House and Senate who consistently vote to support economic freedom and individual liberty.

Sincerely,

Adam Brandon, President, FreedomWorks