The House voted 225-206 on Wednesday night to pass a comprehensive labor rights bill aimed at making it easier for employees to unite them, thus providing increased collective bargaining rights in workplace disputes.
Drive the news Five Republicans joined Democrats in favor of the Protection of the Right to Organize Act.
Yes, but: The bill is likely to stop in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to pass, but is opposed by many Republican senators.
- Another version of the bill was also approved by the Democratic House last year. The Senate did not take it up.
Details: The legislation would also reduce so-called ‘rights-to-work’ laws in more than two dozen countries, allowing employees to participate in and pay unions.
- The law will prohibit employers from using the employee’s immigration status against them when negotiating their employment.
What they say: President Biden endorsed the bill on Tuesday, saying in a statement that it would “dramatically improve the power of workers to organize and bargain collectively for better wages, benefits and working conditions”.
- “As America works to recover from the devastating challenges of the deadly pandemic, an economic crisis and the calculation of race that reveals profound inequalities, we must call on a new wave of workers to create an economy that works for all.”
- The other side: The National Retail Federation called it ‘the worst bill in Congress’.
- Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the bill would undermine workers’ rights, ensnare employers in unrelated labor disputes, disrupt the economy and force individual Americans to pay unions regardless of their wishes.
The whole picture: The PRO Act would restrict companies such as Uber and Lyft from classifying employees as independent contractors and improve protection for workers’ right to strike, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
- Biden said in early March that he supported a vote by Amazon’s union workers in Alabama that, if accepted, would be the first Amazon warehouse to be united.