The continuing campaign to Unionize Amazon — America’s second largest private-sector employer with more than a million employees — has energized the Labor Movement at home and abroad.
As millions of American workers find themselves stuck in dreary and repetitive jobs with inadequate pay and poor access to benefits, many of them look to Unions as their best hope for relief.
They understand their employers will never give them want they need — a voice in the workplace and the ability to negotiate the terms of their employment — without being compelled to do so by the combined strength of their work force.
This is why we have Unions. And this is why we need strong laws to protect the rights of workers to join a Union if they want to.
Unfortunately, the laws we have on the books, dating as far back as the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, are no longer adequate to protect those rights.
Over time, corporations have found ways to harass and intimidate their pro-Union workers, making it extremely difficult to organize any large company.
Now, we have a historic opportunity to do something about it by passing a national law called the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or simply the PRO Act.
Already passed by the House of Representatives but facing a difficult climb in the Senate, the PRO Act would stiffen the penalties when companies disobey the law. It would prohibit forced meetings in which managers try to browbeat workers into voting against a Union. It would add tools Unions can use to strengthen worker solidarity.
Perhaps most significantly, it would end the laws enacted by states to weaken unions in the private sector.
If America is to move forward and offer hope to its working people, we need to pass the PRO Act into law.
Solidarity Works!
