Pro-worker Republicans will never support big labor’s PRO Act
Washington Examiner
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“I want to stand with them and their bold struggle to actually get what they deserve,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said while visiting striking autoworkers in Wentzville, Missouri. “We need to make things in this country. We need to keep the jobs that we have, increase their wages, and we need to get more jobs back here.”
Hawley’s decision to show his support for striking autoworkers by visiting them on a picket line surprised many political observers, some of whom then wondered if the senator had changed his mind about big labor’s top policy priority in Washington: the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
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No one should hold their breath waiting for Hawley or other Republicans to drop their opposition to the PRO Act. Just go visit the AFL-CIO’s website and you’ll see why anyone who believes in conservative principles could never support this big labor payday. For decades, the top priority of big labor has not been better pay and working conditions, it has been attaining political power for themselves and the politicians who control the Democratic Party and spend union dues pushing issues such as climate change, immigration amnesty, and racial “justice.”
Workers around the country have noticed that they are no longer the top priority of big labor bosses who supposedly represent them. Asked to identify why they don’t want to join a union, 75% of non-union workers identify “union political involvement” as the top reason they don’t want to join.
If the PRO Act were to become law, far more money would be taken out of worker paychecks and devoted to leftist activist groups such as Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Clinton Foundation.
Democrats claim the PRO Act would protect workers’ rights to bargain collectively with employers, but nothing could be further from the truth. The PRO Act would destroy worker privacy and choice by unleashing hardcore progressive activists on workers’ private residences.
The PRO Act would force employers to give union activists the private addresses and cellphone numbers of their employees. The activists would then be free to harass and bully employees at their homes and on their phones.
Key to this harassment campaign is the PRO Act’s destruction of a cornerstone of democracy — the secret ballot. Under the PRO Act, workers would no longer be protected by anonymity. Union activists could press them to sign cards supporting a union in public, and once the union had a majority of signed cards, it would win.
Under the PRO Act, once a union wins, all employees would be forced to turn their paychecks over to the political whims of big labor’s leadership. No worker would be allowed to opt out of paying union dues.
There is a better way, indeed there could hardly be a worse way to conduct labor relations. Many employers want to work with staff to give them a voice on workplace conditions. Many European countries allow employers and employees to form cooperative associations that do this. But U.S. labor law forbids such free associations. Currently, only big labor is allowed to speak for workers, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
The Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act would change the law to allow for workers and employers to work together without involving the politically corrupt big labor establishment.
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Workers and employers, especially in heavily regulated sectors such as manufacturing, have many common interests that are not shared by leaders of big labor who have been captured by the Democratic Party.
Workers need an outlet for collective action that is not corrupted by the Democratic Party. Labor law should be changed to let that happen.