CDW Voices Opposition In Letter To Lawmakers; Calls Bill A Slap In The Face To Employees & Businesses Struggling To Survive During Pandemic

Washington, D.C. – The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), composed of hundreds of organizations representing millions of businesses that employ tens of millions of workers nationwide in nearly every industry, shared a letter with U.S. lawmakers expressing opposition to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act (H.R. 842/S. 420).

CDW said the PRO Act would drastically restructure the nation’s labor laws resulting in economic upheaval that would eliminate millions of American jobs, threaten vital supply chains, and greatly diminish opportunities for employees and employers. The legislation attempts to increase union density and leverage while failing to consider the negative impacts it would have on workers, businesses, and the economy.

“The PRO Act would enable labor organizers to deploy intimidation and threatening tactics against workers by forcing employers to hand over the personal contact information of employees, even for those who have no interest in joining a union,” said CDW Chair Kristen Swearingen. “In an attempt to increase labor membership at any cost, the bill would make radical changes to well-established law, diminish employees’ rights to privacy, and force businesses across nearly every industry to lay off employees or close their doors permanently.”

As the CDW letter explains, the bill threatens the fundamental rights of employees and vital aspects of the U.S. economy, including but not limited to:

• Workers’ right to choose whether or not to be represented by a union through secret ballot elections;
• Workers’ right to remove a union that has failed to adequately represent them;
• Businesses and individuals’ ability to contract with independent contractors and other businesses;
• Workers’ right to choose not to contribute to a union they do not support;
• Americans’ opportunity to own a franchise business or work independently; and
• The government’s ability to prevent unions from expanding a labor dispute with one employer to other businesses and consumers – a change that threatens to disrupt supply chains and/or projects that are vital to our national pandemic response.

Swearingen also said pushing through this legislation at a time when so many businesses are struggling to keep their doors open and employees retained is deeply short-sighted.

Click here for more information on the negative impacts of the PRO Act.

 

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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