U.S. House Committee Considers Legislation To Implement Obama-Era Labor Policies

As Connecting the Dots reported last week, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced legislation that would implement a number of highly contentious labor policies from the Obama administration that have been struck down by courts, opposed on a bipartisan basis in Congress, or have been abandoned by the federal agencies charged with implementing them.

These include, but are not limited to, codifying the Obama-era joint-employer standard into law, banning right-to-work laws, forcing union representation without an election and altering independent contractor status.

The House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the bill, called the Protecting the Right To Organize (PRO) Act. Bloomberg covered the hearing and noted the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace sent a letter opposing the bill. The CDW argued the legislation would “make radical changes to well-established law, diminish employees’ rights to privacy and association, destroy businesses, and threaten entire industries that have fueled innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation.”

The committee is expected to vote on the bill in the coming weeks. The full House could consider it in the early summer.