In Sacramento last week, Peace & Freedom Party member C.T. Weber joined several other delegates to the Sacramento Central Labor Council at the Federal Building in Sacramento to urge support for the PRO Act.
Members of newly-appointed U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s staff addressed the delegates to announce that the Senator had signed on as a cosponsor of the bill.
The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (HR 842 (Scott) and S.420 (Murray)), known as the PRO Act, would restore the right of workers to organize unions and bargain for change in their workplace. Union density has eroded since the passage in 1947 of the Taft-Hartley Act that, among other things, allowed for the creation of “Right to Work” laws which make it difficult to form unions.
The PRO Act would:
- repeal “right to work” laws—divisive and racist laws created during the Jim Crow era—that lead to lower wages, fewer benefits and more dangerous workplaces;
- allow workers to organize and bargain;
- ensure that workers can reach a first contract quickly after a union is recognized;
- prevent the bosses’ practice of punishing striking workers by hiring permanent replacements. Labor rights are every worker’s rights – and workers shouldn’t lose jobs for exercising their right to strike;
- strengthen the National Labor Relations Board and allow it to penalize employers who retaliate against working people in support of the union or collective bargaining; and
- create pathways for workers to form unions, without fear, in newer industries like Big Tech.