Coalition Of Business Leaders Say Hearing Showed Legislation Strips Workers’ Essential Rights, Risks Closure Of Small And Local Businesses, And Threatens To Derail Nation’s Economic Recovery

Washington, D.C. – The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), composed of more than 600 major business organizations representing millions of businesses employing tens of millions of workers nationwide, released the following statement leading up to this week’s public hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.

The following statement is attributable to CDW Chair Kristen Swearingen:

“Today’s hearing exposed the PRO Act for what it is – a power grab by Big Labor bosses to re-write our nation’s labor laws with the sole purpose of boosting the number of dues paying members at the expense of workers, Main Street consumers, entrepreneurs, and small and local businesses.

“And just like the PRO Act does for labor laws, this hearing stacked the deck in unions’ favor. The three witnesses chosen by Democrats to testify were all radical mouthpieces for union lobbyists, with no witnesses representing the majority of Americans who reject forced unionization and only one witness representing the small business community. This hearing did not allow an accurate or fair representation of how the PRO Act will impact millions of Americans.

“Recent studies have shown that the PRO Act would strip right-to-work protections away from 61 million Americans, potentially forcing them to pay up to $1,000 or more per year in union dues or lose their job. A recent survey found that 70 percent of U.S. voters are concerned about the PRO Act abolishing state right-to-work protections. By removing right-to-work protections for millions of American workers, the PRO Act would strip away their choice on whether or not to join a union.

“The PRO Act would also force employers to hand over the personal information of employees to labor organizers, without the consent of workers. With unfettered access to employees, labor organizers would have the ability to harass and bully workers into joining a union. They could show up at their home, spam them on email and even bully them on social media.

“From restricting independent contracting jobs with its implementation of an ‘ABC test’ to upending the franchising industry by expanding the joint-employer standard, the PRO Act’s drastic restructuring of the nation’s labor laws and resulting economic upheaval would cost millions of Americans their jobs and threaten vital supply chains, which would greatly diminish opportunities for workers and cause small and local businesses to close their doors forever.

“Businesses and workers across the country are slowly getting back on their feet after the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rewriting our nation’s labor laws solely to benefit Big Labor bosses would cause irreparable harm to our country’s economic efforts and threaten to derail our recovery.

“As the Senate HELP committee continues to consider the PRO Act, we call on Members of Congress to reject this ill-conceived, anti-worker, job killing legislation.”

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

 

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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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