Sen. Mark Kelly Supports ‘The Overall Goals’ Of The PRO Act

There are three Democratic Senators who have not yet fully committed to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would make improvements to union organizing rights, and end free rider so-called “right to work” laws: Sen. Mark Warner (VA), and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly.

Senator Mark Kelly now appears to be seeking some degree of separation from his Senate filibuster supporting seat mate, Kyrsten Sinema.

The Huffington Post reports, Senator Mark Kelly Says He Supports ‘Overall Goals’ Of PRO Act:

A key Senate Democrat hinted Wednesday that he would back his party’s effort to overhaul labor law and boost union membership through landmark reforms.

Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) told HuffPost that he supports “the overall goals” of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, and that he’s open to using budget reconciliation rules to pass parts of it.

The bill is the most ambitious attempt to reform collective bargaining in generations. So far, Kelly has been one of just a handful of moderate Democrats who have not signed on in support of it. The senator said his thinking evolved after speaking with employers and workers in Arizona.

“I would like to see some changes,” Kelly added. “I do have some concerns with the legislation, specifically things about who qualifies as an independent contractor. Sometimes employers often use that to their advantage. In other cases, I do think people should be able to be independent contractors.”

Democrats do not currently have enough backing to push the PRO Act through in its entirety, but budget reconciliation may provide an avenue for one or more crucial pieces to be implemented on a party-line vote. Kelly’s support would be essential to such an effort.

One critical measure in the PRO Act that Democrats believe could pass under reconciliation rules is monetary penalties for employers who illegally bust unions.

Under current law, the penalties for what are known as unfair labor practices are so weak that there’s little incentive to follow the law. For instance, if an employer is found to have illegally fired a worker for trying to organize a union, the employer generally just has to pay back wages to the worker, minus any wages the worker made elsewhere since he was canned.

Many employers that violate the National Labor Relations Act merely have to post a notice in the workplace acknowledging they ran afoul of the law.

The PRO Act would increase the costs of law-breaking substantially: Each unfair labor practice would come with a civil fine of up to $50,000. Unions hope such a measure would alter the organizing landscape by pressuring employers not to retaliate against union supporters or bargain in bad faith over union contracts.

Many Democrats are confident those fines could pass under reconciliation rules because they raise money for the federal government. In order to comply with reconciliation, a proposal must significantly impact federal spending and revenue.

“Depending on how it’s done, I’m not necessarily opposed to that,” Kelly said when asked about passing parts of the bill via reconciliation.

The PRO Act in its entirety would do far more than just increase penalties for union-busting. It would nullify “right to work” laws that are now on the books in a majority of states; it would make it easier for newly unionized workforces to secure a first contract; and it would strengthen the right to strike and boycott, among other measures.

One of the most contentious elements is how the law would extend collective bargaining rights to “independent contractors” who are not employees, a provision Kelly said he is concerned by. Unions have said they want to pass the law in its entirety, but the PRO Act’s Democratic backers may be willing to set aside such pieces for now if it means getting other parts of the bill through reconciliation.

Since being elected to the Senate in a 2020 special election, Kelly has sought to cultivate a centrist persona, joining other moderate senators in drafting bipartisan infrastructure legislation and declining to take a firm position on eliminating the filibuster. He faces reelection next year, and a number of Republican candidates have already started lining up to challenge him.

However, Kelly has also taken positions in the Senate that have raised eyebrows for a Democrat who represents a GOP-heavy state like Arizona, such as his vote to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 earlier this year. His move to embrace that effort, as well as the goals of the PRO Act, stands in sharp contrast to Arizona’s senior Democratic senator, Kyrsten Sinema, who doesn’t face reelection until 2024. Sinema and Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) are the remaining Democratic holdouts to advancing the legislation.

The PRO Act, supported by President Joe Biden, a self-described union man, passed the House back in March with all but one Democrat, but only 5 Republicans. It has little chance of passing in the Senate, barring filibuster reform or going the budget reconciliation route. Democrats said last week they’re trying to include it in their $3.5 trillion infrastructure package, which would only need a simple majority of 50 votes to pass through reconciliation.

The PRO Act does have support from voters, with 59% of likely voters saying they would support the PRO Act, according to a Vox/Data for Progress poll. That includes support from 74% of Democrats, 58% of independents and 40% of Republicans. Poll: A majority of voters support the PRO Act.

Organized labor’s intensive drive to lobby senators, from supportive Democrats to resistant Republicans, to pass the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, revved up the week of July 17-24. It featured rallies, marches, phone banks, and sometimes virtual events.

Organizers have gained support from faith leaders. PRO Act drive revs up as faith groups back legislation:

Workers picked up notable backing from groups of faith leaders from Judaism, the Catholic Church, Islam, and mainline Protestantism. One non-signer: The right-wing Southern Baptist Convention. The 21 supportive groups cast worker rights as a moral issue, too. And the eight Catholic groups’ stand agrees with the strong, frequent pro-worker pro-union statements of Pope Francis I.

“Our belief in the intrinsic worth of both work and workers leads us to strongly support the PRO Act, which will strengthen and expand the right of workers to bargain collectively, form unions, and engage in collective action without fear of retaliation from their employers. Such assurances are also better for employers as they contribute to better productivity, mutual collaboration, and sustainability,” they said.

The theme of the pro-PRO Act drive is “Workers’ rights are civil rights.” Details about the legislation, rallies and events are on a new website: www.proact.aflcio.org.

Whether all the pressure will convince enough GOPers to defect from the party’s anti-worker, anti-union line is uncertain. And there are still two reluctant Democrats to persuade: Arizonan Kyrsten Sinema and Virginia’s Mark Warner. The Northern Virginia AFL-CIO holds “weekly Wednesday” demonstrations near Warner’s home in the D.C. suburbs.

Without those two, plus 10 of the evenly split Senate’s 50 Republicans, a GOP filibuster threat by worker-hater GOP leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would halt the legislation, the most wide-ranging pro-worker labor law reform since the original 1935 National Labor Relations Act, in its tracks.

“This PRO Act Week of Action is another full-court press. America’s labor movement is showing up in every corner of our country to demand a fix to our outdated labor laws that are nearly 100 years old,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “Our members and all working people are committed to making the PRO Act the law of the land this year.”

[T]he religious groups’ letter cast the PRO Act in economic as well as moral terms, pointing out how its passage would help workers of color in particular, by invalidating “the harmful legacy of” state Jim Crow-era so-called “right to work” laws.

Bosses use those laws to weaken unions financially and to divide and conquer workers by playing off race against race.

“Our current labor laws are no longer effective in protecting the lives and dignity of workers and fall woefully short of allowing workers to productively advocate for their needs from a position of mutuality with employers,” the groups wrote senators. “As union membership has fallen due to counter-productive laws and amendments, inequality has skyrocketed leaving the working class with little constructive power over their own economic security; and thus, also harming sustainable business models.

“The PRO Act addresses these current inadequacies by empowering workers to effectively exercise their freedom to organize and bargain. Critically, it also ends employers’ practice of punishing striking workers, strengthens the National Labor Relations Board and allows it to hold corporations accountable for retaliating against workers, and would help us collectively do better for all our needs by repealing” the federal law—which congressional Republicans enacted in 1947—legalizing states’ RTW statutes.

Those state laws “reinforce Jim Crow by maintaining labor segregation and further exploiting workers of color,” since eight of the ten states with the highest percentage of Black residents—and workers—are RTW states, they note.

“These restrictions strip funding and bargaining power from unions, which have a devastating effect on the economic stability of people of color,” the faith leaders declare.

Eight Catholic groups signed the letter: The Catholic Labor Network, the U.S. provinces of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker of D.C., the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Pax Christi USA, the Franciscan Action Network, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

Other faith groups signing the letter were: the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and the National Council of Jewish Women (all Jewish), the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers), the Islamic Council of North America’s social justice commission, the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Presbyterian Church’s Office of Public Witness, the Progressive National Baptist Convention (Black Baptists), the Episcopalian, United Methodist, Unitarian churches, and the United Church of Christ.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema is making a bid to become the next Disney villainess with her unprincipled defense of the Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster rule, joining the likes of Maleficent, Cruella de Vil, and the Evil Queen (from Snow White). Maybe today’s march should be at her office instead?