On February 28, 2023, Congressional Democrats reintroduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act (H.R. 20, S. 567). This radical legislation includes dozens of provisions that would violate workers’ free choice and privacy rights, force unions on employees who have voted against such representation, cost millions of American jobs, threaten vital supply chains, and greatly hinder our economy. The bill boosts union membership at the expense of American workers and small businesses.

Some of the most egregious provisions would:

• strip away workers’ privacy rights and key protections guaranteeing workers’ free choice through secret ballots in union representation elections;
• curb opportunities for people to work independently through gig economy platforms or more traditional independent contractor roles;
• require workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment even in the twenty-seven states that have enacted Right-to-Work protections;
• force small businesses who rely on independent contractors to lay off workers and potentially close;
• change the legal standard for joint-employer liability, reducing opportunities for our country’s small and local businesses through subcontracts, licensing, and franchising;
• violate employers’ right to attorney-client confidentiality on complex labor law issues, making it harder for businesses, particularly small businesses, to secure legal advice;
• impose government control over private contracts;
• infringe on the due process rights of employers; and
• expose the economy to a flood of “blackmail” strikes used by unions to attack businesses simply to destroy the business and for anti-competitive purposes, even though these tactics were overwhelmingly banned by bipartisan majorities in Congress in the 1940’s and 1950’s. These attacks are different than those unions can lawfully bring against companies it has targeted for organizing or as part of a dispute over labor practices.

With this legislation Congressional Democrats are attempting to implement labor law policies that have previously been rejected by the judicial system, opposed on a bipartisan basis in Congress, and/or withdrawn by the agencies that prior administrations tried to use to implement the policies unilaterally. All of these entities realized those policies violated the law, exceeded the authority granted to the implementing agencies, or would cause serious damage to the American workplace.

CDW launched an extensive campaign in order to educate both lawmakers and the public about the detrimental consequences of this legislation.