labor organizing bill to be voted on in congress

An act that will insert new language into the National Labor Relations Act may substantially increase the picketing rights of labor unions, according to analysts.

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act, otherwise known simply as the PRO Act, is designed to make it easier for unions to picket as part of a jurisdictional dispute, while also weakening state right to work laws.

The measure will also require workers to pay union dues, even if they opt out of union representation.

A new study by the Associated General Contractors of America asserts that the measure will undermine “area-wide collective bargaining.”

That study, The PRO ACT: What Union Contractors Need to Know, says the legislation will additionally allow for “picketing against neutral contractors to gain leverage in a dispute with another employer.”

But a separate study called The PRO Act conducted by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute contends that it is “still too difficult for working people to form a union at their workplace if they want to.”

The EPI study says that current laws “give employers too much power and put too many roadblocks in the way of workers trying to organize with their co-workers.”
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While the House is expected to pass the PRO Act, its fate in the Senate appears uncertain. 

By Garry Boulard

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