House Democrats are on track to pass broad legislation that would increase the power of the nation’s shrinking unions by expanding collective bargaining rights and allowing so-called gig workers to organize.
“Unions pave the way for bigger paychecks for all,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said during floor debate on Tuesday.
Democrats first passed the bill in 2020, but it went nowhere in the GOP-led Senate. The Senate has since flipped to Democratic control, and union leaders are ramping up pressure on Democratic leaders to force it through over GOP objections.
The bill would for the first time allow contract workers such as Uber and Lyft drivers to be classified as employees for the purpose of organizing into unions.
The bill would essentially eliminate “right to work” laws that exist in some states and that prevent unions from forcing employees to pay dues.
Democrats say the legislation is necessary to strengthen unions and the rights of workers, which will ensure fair pay and treatment. It’s considered the most significant measure to bolster the power of unions that Congress has considered since 1947.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said the measure “is workers’ rights legislation that working people in our country need and for which they have been waiting for far too long.”
Senate Democrats are under tremendous pressure to get the bill to President Biden’s desk, but it may be difficult if not impossible under current rules that require 60 votes to pass legislation.
Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday that Senate Democrats should consider eliminating the 60-vote threshold in the Senate in order to force the bill into law.
“I personally would like to see the filibuster eliminated,” Hoyer said.
Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, hailed the legislation as “huge,” especially for workers in Southern states such as Alabama, where workers are engaged in a dispute with shipping company Amazon.
“It’s huge because the attacks on workers, organizations, and workers’ rights has been centered in the South,” Trumka said. “And a company like Amazon is massive, and everybody says it is unable for anybody to organize any of the workers. It would demonstrate that workers are coming together and have the power to sit down with a company no matter how big and actually negotiate a deal for better working conditions.”
House Republicans condemned the bill, arguing it violated workers’ rights by forcing them into unions and curtailing worker flexibility. The measure would require employers to disclose employee contact information to unions and would levy expanded fines to businesses that violate labor laws.
“This bill would be the most drastic change to labor law this country has seen in the past 80 years,” Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, a Wisconsin Republican, said. “It would severely upend labor laws and established precedents at the behest of Democrats and their Big Labor donors and at the expense of hardworking Americans.”
