As Home Pushes Labor Rights Growth, Senate Probabilities Are Slim

“Heaven forbids us to say goodbye to anything that will help the damned workers in the United States of America,” roared Democrat Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, across the floor of the house on Tuesday, addressing Republicans who were lining up, to oppose the measure. The GOP, he said, seemed more interested in tax cuts and the moaning of “cancel culture” than helping American paperbacks.

“Stop talking about Dr. Seuss and work with us on American workers!” he added.

Union strengthening has been a priority for Democrats and some Republicans in Congress for decades as corporations, courts, and Republican-led states have slowly abandoned OSH. Declining union participation – just over 10 percent of American workers are in a union today, compared to a high of a third in the 1950s – coupled with stagnation in wages for the working class and middle class has put the issue at the forefront Democrats catapulted. Agenda.

Labor rights advocates point to studies suggesting that unions are helping to achieve higher wages regardless of race or gender, as well as a safer work environment – issues that gained greater resonance in the country during the pandemic and after protests against racial justice last year Have found public. Public polls suggest that support for unions is also growing.

“The PRO law is a civil rights law,” said Richard Trumka. The President of the AFL-CIO said in a recent interview. “If you have a union contract, everyone earns the same wages. There is no difference between men and women, black and white. There are LGBTQ protections for women. The law doesn’t always protect them, but their contracts do. “

The bill would not in itself create trade unions or change the right to organize. Rather, it seeks to ease the path to unionization by strengthening existing unions, introducing new protections for workers who want to band together to bargain as a bloc, and introducing new penalties for employers who want to undermine such efforts.

For example, the measure would deprive employers of some of their most effective tools for stopping an organizing campaign: calling mandatory meetings to dissuade employees from unionizing, as Amazon has done, and permanent replacement of striking workers.

It would, for the first time, give real teeth to the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces labor law and enables federal regulators to impose fines and other significant penalties on companies that violate the rights of their workers. Studies suggest that such violations are widespread as employers have no real ramifications for their actions. And unjustified workers would be given new rights to sue in court if the board of directors refused to prosecute their cases.

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