Written by Michael Palomba
Virtually everyone in California is all too familiar with AB 5 by now. You know, the horribly rushed bill, authored by San Diego’s own Lorena Gonzalez, that forces people to be classified as employees and essentially eliminates the ability for businesses to hire independent contractors.
You’d think with the massive legal battles, repeal bills, and pushback from constituents that others would take note and understand the problems that AB 5 has caused. Unfortunately, as is often the case for Democrats, that is not the case.
H.R. 2464, known as the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, would “amend the National Labor Relations Act and related labor laws to extend protections to union workers.” The full description of the bill is linked.
Essentially, this is just a federal version of AB 5 that was successfully passed by Democrats in the House of Representatives in a near-party line vote. Fortunately, the Republican majority in the Senate led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell means that the PRO Act is going nowhere, for now at least.
It’s shocking and alarming that Democrats in Congress are copying California’s mistakes rather than learning from them. And it’s even more of a problem that they are trying to implement these intrusive policies on a nationwide scale. So, while it’s reassuring that we have a Senate with some sanity, we can’t just call it a day.
Republicans are not guaranteed control of the Senate, just like Democrats aren’t guaranteed the House. Every election has the potential to sway the power dynamic in either direction. So the fact that a Democrat-controlled Senate would have pushed this intrusive bill through should worry everyone.
