Democrat “PRO Act” Is Pro-Union Boss and Anti-Worker

Photo Credit: Martin Brochhaus

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act is currently under Senate consideration. If implemented, the harmful PRO Act would massively increase the power of Big Labor at the expense of American workers. 

Union membership in America has been in freefall for decades. In 1954, 34.8 percent of American workers were in a union – in 2020, just 10.8 percent of workers were unionized.

This presents a big problem for the left, as Big Labor is responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funding just in the 2020 cycle alone. Instead of respecting American workers and their broad desire to stop joining unions, the Democrat party wants to force workers to join unions in order to keep their campaign coffers full. 

The PRO Act increases Big Labor’s power by nullifying Right to Work laws nationwide that protect 166 million Americans in 27 states. Right to Work laws ban employers from forcing their employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment. In Right to Work states, no worker has to make the choice between putting food on the table or paying off a union boss. 

The PRO Act also significantly erodes worker privacy by forcing employers to turn over personal employee contact information to union organizers in advance of any election. This sensitive information can include home addresses, home phone numbers, cell phone numbers, shift hours, and personal email addresses. This would open up every worker to coercion, harassment, and intimidation from union organizers without regard for employee privacy. 

Unions are famous for bullying workers into compliance. In Wisconsin, a Right to Work state, a worker at a Kohler plant did not want to join the Local 833 union. That earned the worker a threatening call from the union boss at his plant, who said that “I don’t want anything bad happening because [the worker wasn’t] joining. President Joe Biden also channeled these thuggish tactics by warning business owners that they will pay a “personal price” for educating their workers on the drawbacks of organized labor. 

The PRO Act’s forced disclosure of sensitive contact information would open up workers to 24/7 intimidation from union organizers. Congress should reject the PRO Act.