Report shows that Big Labor is trying to sneak their anti-worker agenda in the budget reconciliation bill.

Washington, D.C. – A new report by the Institute for the American Worker (I4AW) found that the proposed labor provisions in the U.S. House budget reconciliation bill would enact sweeping changes to federal labor law that would severely undermine workers’ freedoms in an attempt to push more workers into unions.

The report identified the following anti-worker provisions in the House budget reconciliation bill:

• Preventing employers from discussing the downside of unionizing with employees, making it harder for workers to cast an informed vote.
• Imposing punitive fines for technical violations, giving unions financial leverage to pressure employers into not asking for secret ballot elections and further threatening officers with personal liability.
• Providing tax breaks for workers who pay full union dues, including those that fund union political campaigns.
• Denying tax credit eligibility for electric vehicles manufactured at non-union facilities.
• Heavily funding a forthcoming Department of Labor (DOL) initiative to reclassify freelancers and independent contractors as employees.
• Prohibiting employers from locking out employees during labor disputes or hiring permanent replacement workers during strikes.
• Prohibiting employers and employees from using arbitration to resolve class grievances, requiring such disputes to go through the court system instead.

Kristen Swearingen, Chair of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), composed of more than 600 major business and industry groups representing millions of businesses that employ tens of millions of workers nationwide, said the report illustrates how the proposed labor provisions will undermine worker freedoms.

“These pro-union labor provisions in the proposed House budget reconciliation bill are drastic and radical changes to established labor law that only serve to boost union membership at the expense of American workers,” stated Swearingen. “From tax breaks for union dues to attacking independent contracting to souring the employer-worker relationship, these provisions only serve to boost the power and influence of unions while preventing workers from exercising their essential rights and freedoms.”

Swearingen went on to say that these provisions were only included because the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act has stalled in the U.S. Senate due to a lack of support.

“Union bosses and their allies have resorted to using the budget reconciliation bill to implement their anti-worker agenda, because the dangerous and misguided PRO Act couldn’t muster enough support on its own in the Senate,” said Swearingen. “Big Labor’s lobbyists have chosen to use the budget reconciliation bill as its vehicle to sneak in their partisan and anti-worker policies, because they are desperate to force American workers into their ranks and save their bottom line.”

Swearingen concluded, “We strongly urge Members of Congress to oppose these anti-worker labor provisions in the budget reconciliation bill to prevent the forced unionization of American workers.”

 

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About The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace

CDW is a broad-based coalition of hundreds of organizations representing hundreds of thousands of employers and millions of employees in various industries across the country concerned with a long-standing effort by some in the labor movement to make radical changes to the National Labor Relations Act without regard to the severely negative impact they would have on employees, employers, and the economy. CDW was originally formed in 2005 in opposition to the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – a bill similar to the PRO Act – that would have stripped employees of the right to secret ballots in union representation elections and allowed arbitrators to set contract terms regardless of the consequence to workers or businesses.

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