At HELP Hearing, Senator Murray and Union Leaders to Discuss Need for PRO Act to Protect Workers’ Right to Organize

ICYMI: Murray, Schumer, Sanders, Colleagues Introduce PRO Act to Protect Workers’ Right to Organize and Make Economy Work for Workers

***WATCH: SENATOR MURRAY’S FULL QUESTIONING HERE***

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the HELP Committee, joined her colleagues to hear from union leaders about the challenges workers face when exercising their basic right to organize, the role unions play in fight for workers’ rights and improving their benefits and working conditions, and the need to defend the right to organize.

During the hearing, Senator Murray asked the witnesses about how the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—which Senator Murray and her colleagues recently reintroduced—will strengthen workers ability to organize and fight for better pay, benefits, and working conditions.

“I want to start by recognizing how much progress we’ve made as a country in recovering from the pandemic and building a stronger and fairer economy, but there is still a lot of work left to do to make our economy work for everyone. That is why I was proud to introduce the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act again this year along with Chair Sanders. This bill would help hold employers accountable when they violate labor law,” said Senator Murray.

Ahead of Equal Pay Day next Tuesday, and her reintroduction of the Paycheck Fairness Act, Senator Murray also spoke about the importance of fighting for pay equity.

“Despite enacting the Equal Pay Act more than five decades ago, on average women, including those working part-time or part of the year, earn only 77 cents for every dollar paid to men, resulting in a pay gap of $11,782 a year,” said Senator Murray. “That is why I will be introducing the Paycheck Fairness Act soon, because as unions have been really helping lift women, this is something that is important to all of us.”

The witnesses at the hearing included: Liz Shuler, President of AFL-CIO; Mary Kay Henry, International President of the Service Employees International Union; Sean O’Brien, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; John Ring, Partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius and former Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board; and Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

The PRO Act would protect the right to organize and collectively bargain by:

1. Bolstering remedies and punishing violations of workers’ rights through authorizing meaningful penalties for employers that violate workers’ rights, strengthening support for workers who suffer retaliation for exercising their rights,  and authorizing a private right of action for violation of workers’ rights.
2. Strengthening workers’ right to join together and negotiate for better working conditions by enhancing workers’ right to support secondary boycotts, ensuring unions can collect “fair share” fees, modernizing the union election process, and facilitating initial collective bargaining agreements.
3. Restoring fairness to an economy rigged against workers by closing loopholes that allow employers to misclassify their employees as supervisors and independent contractors and increasing transparency in labor-management relations.

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