On March 9, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2021 passed in the House of Representatives. Now the dangerous measure will go before the Senate. NFIB helped to defeat the bill from being enacted into law the first time it was introduced in 2019, but now the dangerous measure is back in front of Congress.
The PRO Act was first introduced in 2019 by Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA). It passed the House in 2020 and subsequently stalled in the Senate. Now that a new Congress has been seated, the bill is back on the table.
Recent NFIB member ballots show that business owners are strongly opposed to the PRO Act, as its core measures would be ruinous to small businesses.
- The PRO Act abolishes “Right to Work” laws that protect non-union workers from contributing to union fees. 70% of NFIB members oppose repealing state “Right to Work” laws.
- It also removes the right of workers to hold a secret ballot regarding if they should or should not join a union. 79% of NFIB members believe that employers should not be required to recognize unions by way of signed authorization cards.
- Furthermore, the PRO Act includes a stricter version of California’s “ABC” independent contractor laws that forced the state of California to immediately carve out dozens of exceptions. The PRO Act has no such exceptions. 95% of NFIB members believe small businesses should be able to hire independent contractors to perform tasks essential to their business.
There are other harmful tenets to the PRO Act, such as making small businesses responsible for the hiring decisions of their subcontractors, requiring employers to provide the personal contact information for all their employees to union organizers without the consent of the employee, and legalizing “secondary boycotts,” where a union can pressure businesses that do dealings with the business they are in dispute with.
Read NFIB’s full statement on the passage of the PRO Act through the House of Representatives here.
NFIB urges all small business owners to contact their Congressional representatives and tell them how the PRO Act’s radical measures would hurt their business.
