House Democrats have approved a bill that would provide protections for workers trying to organize, a measure that is the labor movement's single biggest legislative priority in this Congress. The NLRB is an independent agency that oversees nearly all union elections at private workplaces in the United States. See U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI) Databases, available at, The author estimated the private sector workforce number using annual averages of the number of all employees at privately owned establishments covered by state or federal unemployment insurance programs. }. This question-and-answer document addresses the PRO Act through a human rights lens, with a focus on the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. Employers use their access to workers and control of the workplace to make sure workers understand the employers views about unionization. Events Congress has not increased funding for the agency since 20143and even this amount was a decline from the peak funding level reached in 2010.4 Due to the effects of inflation, this flat funding has significantly reduced agency resources; the number of staffers has dropped by 30 percent since 2010.5 In other words, lawmakers are quietly undermining Americans existing bargaining rights by starving the NLRB of essential operating funds. RT @adamconover: Neither the WGA or SAG-AFTRA is calling for a consumer boycott right now. 20), a comprehensive proposal to protect workers' right to come together and bargain for higher wages, better benefits, and safer workplaces. subscribe.submit(); These companies use algorithms and other data-driven technologies to match consumers with workers who provide a wide range of services, such as transportation, grocery delivery, care work, and repairs. 2474) would radically overhaul United States labor relations law to facilitate labor union organizing without regard to the negative consequences on workers, consumers, employers, and the economy. Worker Organizing Resource and Knowledge Center A variety of factors have contributed to the decline in union membership in the US. Protecting The Right To Organize (Pro) Act Addresses Growing Income Inequality And Builds A Fairer, More Inclusive Economy. In addition to modernizing union elections, the PRO Act would make it harder for companies to use the delays leading up to union elections to mount anti-union campaigns. Right to Work | AFL-CIO As shown in Figure 2, the rate at which workers win unions in NLRB elections has climbed steadily during the first two years of the Biden administration, reaching 71.4 percent from January 2022 to October 2022 and exceeding any level achieved under the previous administration. Why workers need the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, How the PRO Act solves the problems in current law that thwart workers seeking union representation, Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN). In other words, firing union supporters is just a cost of doing business. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost one in four workers performed their jobs remotely in August 2020 because of the pandemic. Providing organizers with phone numbers and email addresses will enable them to convey timely updates about workers rights to vote and engage with workers about issues of representation wherever they are. When companies are considered joint employers, they both have an obligation to bargain with employees over working conditions that they control or influence and can be held liable for violating their employees rights under the NLRA. An EPI chart listing some of the major problems in current labor law and how the PRO Act addresses them can be found here. Employers Are Charged with Violating Federal Law in 41.5% of All Union Election Campaigns. How can technology make it easier for employers to suppress or discourage organizing? A video of the rally can be viewed here. No. Despite inadequate funding, the NLRB has made great progress under its new leadership. Now there is an opportunity to strengthen US labor laws. The ILO also considers the right to strike to be an intrinsic corollary of the right to freedom of association if it is utilized as a means of defending workers economic and social interests. WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. 2. Nine in 10 employers require employees to attend mandatory captive-audience meetingsmeetings delivering anti-union messages that employees must attend or else be disciplined or fired.12 Two-thirds of employers require employees to meet one-on-one with their supervisors at least weekly during organizing campaigns.13 Meanwhile, employers legally are allowed to keep union organizers out of the workplace so that organizers are unable to talk directly with employees on the job. In fact, employers are charged with violating the law by firing activists, making illegal threats, and engaging in other unlawful conduct in 41.5% of all organizing campaigns.9. (March 11, 2021), available at, For more information on the PRO Act, see U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, Protecting the Right to Organize Act Fact Sheet., Celine McNicholas and others, Unlawful: U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2019), available at, Daniel Tope and David Jacobs, The Politics of Union Decline: The Contingent Determinants of Union Recognition Elections and Victories,, Aaron Gregg, Judge orders Amazon to reinstate fired worker, pay lost wages,, National Labor Relations Board, Settlement Agreement In The Matter of Amazon.com Services, LLC: Cases 13-CA-275270, 13-CA-276695, 13-CA279376, 29-CA-278982, 29-CA-282693, and 29-CA-284417 (Washington: 2021), available at, National Labor Relations Board, NLRB Region-15 Wins Injunction Requiring Starbucks to Rehire Seven Unlawfully Fired Workers, Post the Courts Order, and Cease and Desist from Unlawful Activities., Robert Iafolla, Starbucks Nonunion Worker Pay Bumps Raise Labor Law Red Flags, Bloomberg Law, September 7, 2022, available at, Shannon Liao, Labor board says Activision withheld raises from union activists,, National Labor Relations Board, Election Petitions Up 53%, Board Continues to Reduce Case Processing Time in FY22, Press release, October 6, 2022, available at, Daniel Wiessner, U.S. 11. The share of US workers with collective bargaining coverage (those represented by a union, including nonunion members) was similarly low, at 12.1 percent. Instead, employers can refuse to recognize a union and require workers to go through the NLRBs election processa process that employers exploit to delay and undermine the union organizing drive. The agency also has the authority to engage in rule-making, including to establish procedures and standards for all the union elections it oversees. In some cases, employers may be required to post a notice that they violated the law but are not otherwise penalized. For example, an NLRB judge required Amazon to reinstate an employee illegally fired at a Staten Island, New York, site in April 2022,21 and an agency regional director approved a settlement with the company that required Amazon to rescind policies restricting worker organizers access to facilities where organizers may interact with coworkers.22 A federal judge also granted an NLRB field office petition for Starbucks to reinstate seven fired workers engaged in protected organizing work in Memphis, Tennessee.23 Around the same time, another NLRB field office filed a complaint alleging that Starbucks unlawfully attempted to withhold pay raises from recently unionized workers.24 In addition, an NLRB general counsel investigation alleged that Activision Publishing also attempted to withhold the pay raises of unionized playtesters at Raven Software.25. Separate laws regulate unions in the public and private sectors. Researchers at Harvard University and the University of Washington found that the drop in union density may have accounted for as much as 40 percent of rising inequality. For this analysis, CAP analyzed all closed NLRB union certification elections per calendar year since 2017 that resulted in either a successful union certification for representation or a certified count of results if workers voted against unionizing that bargaining unit. Delta Air Lines Workers, Teamsters, IAM, and AFA Demand Company Stop The United States is an ILO member and has a duty to abide by these conventions terms, even though it has not ratified them. var subscribe = document.getElementById('enSubscribeLayout2'); Jobs at EPI What Are Workers' Rights? | U.S. Department of Labor It's Your Legally Protected Right to Organize a Union! | UE As Figure 1 shows, in fiscal year 2021 alone, the NLRB won more reinstatement offers for workers fired illegally for engaging in protected organizing activities than during all four years of the Trump administration. But companies routinely claim that they are merely technology platforms and they wrongly classify their workers as independent contractors, an employment category with few wage and labor rights protections and no recognized right in the US to bargain collectively or unionize. No. Worker Organizing Resource and Knowledge Center Know Your Rights Toolkit Know Your Rights Toolkit Background The Department of Labor created a new toolkit to inform workers about their right to organize, their right to collective action, and their right to form a union. Pro-worker members of Congress must act to make sure that the NLRB receives the funding increases it needs to fulfill its purpose. PRO Act solution: The PRO Act establishes a mediation and, if necessary, arbitration process to ensure that workers and employers obtain an initial collective bargaining agreement when workers first organize. And it creates a private right of action so that illegally discharged workers can file civil lawsuits against their employers and are not wholly dependent on the NLRB to pursue their cases. These companies often exert their market power to suppress the prices of supplier firms, which in turn incentivizes contractors to keep wages low and provides little job security. Facilitate worker organizing across the country by taking an all-of-government approach to mobilize the federal government's policies, programs, and practices to provide workers the opportunity . These activities are almost entirely prohibited under current US law, in violation of ILO standards. Only the NLRB can prosecute violations of federal labor law. EPIs research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans. These laws, originally created in the 1940s to keep Black and white workers apart and to preserve the US souths racial and economic hierarchies, have been promoted by a network of billionaires and special-interest groups to weaken workers collective voice on the job and give more power to corporations. Such systems cover workers even if no contract was negotiated with that workers individual employer. Senators Jon Ossoff and Rev. The US government should further amend the NLRA to include agricultural and domestic workers, who are exempted from its protections and who often face abusive working conditions. In fiscal year 2019, employers were ordered to reinstate more than 1,431 workers who were fired illegally for exercising their rights.10. Celine McNicholas et al., Unlawful: U.S. This creates a discouraging situation for workers and allows employers to foster a sense of futility in the process. 842, S. 420, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Duke University and the University of Toulouse, wages for lower income workers and growing, US has a relatively low share of union membership, deleted posts criticizing workplace conditions, growing presence and reach of workplace surveillance technologies, requir[ing] or coerc[ing] an employee to attend or participate in such employers campaign activities unrelated to the employees job duties, mitigate the personal safety and public health risks. The idea of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights has been a centerpiece of the push for better working conditions for nearly two decades, ever since activist Ai-jen Poo envisioned the National . While US law formally guarantees workers the right to organize, Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented several areas in which federal law fails to adequately protect the freedom of workers to associate and bargain collectively. Collective Bargaining and Civil Liberties Economic Policy Institute, September 2016. Our aim is not just to change the conversation, but to change the country. Under the Biden administration, the National Labor Relations Board is striving to protect workers' right to form a union and collectively bargain, but the agency remains underfunded and understaffed. Moreover, a 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that years of underfunding took its greatest staffing toll on the NLRBs regional offices, where representation and unfair labor practice cases most frequently originate.45 The GAOs analysis of data from the Office of Personnel Managements (OPM) 2019 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey found that overall employee satisfaction ranked last out of 17 midsize federal agencies, and internal stakeholders cited by the GAO report attributed low staff morale to pressure to process cases faster, understaffing, and demand from resulting heavier workloads.46 In addition, mismanagement under leadership installed during the Trump administration resulted in an investigation after the agency failed to spend its allocated budget in fiscal year 2019.47 Furthermore, the GAO concluded that the OPMs survey results demonstrate that NLRB employees were increasingly dissatisfied with senior leaders policies,48 meaning that NLRB leaders appointed by President Biden have had to focus on righting the ship since beginning their tenure.49, In recent years, pro-worker majorities in both houses of Congress have proposed increasing agency fundingonly to lose these boosts to negotiations during the legislative conference process. Employers know that under current labor law, they will face no real consequences for illegally firing workers. [Related: PRO Act at a glance] The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act addresses many of the major shortcomings with our current law. Gordon Lafer and Lola Loustaunau, Fear at Work: An Inside Account of How Employers Threaten, Intimidate, and Harass Workers to Stop Them from Exercising their Right to Collective Bargaining, Economic Policy Institute, July 2020. This tech-enabled strategy of misclassification threatens to spread and disrupt workers across all industries, incentivizing employers in other sectors to gig out jobs and shift the jobs of one-time employees to precarious workers without basic labor rights and safety nets.
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