The Worker Power Coalition, a coalition of “workers, grassroots organizations and labor unions fighting to rebuild the power of American workers across sectors”, is launching a formal campaign this week in support of the PRO Act.
According to Politico, the coalition will focus efforts on Senators in battleground states Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida ahead of the midterm elections. The campaign will include protests, office visits, call campaigns, and town hall meetings.
Its aim is to make it clear to voters where each candidate stands on the PRO Act and shame non-supporters.
The proposal, which passed the House and is stalled in the Senate, is widely supported by labor unions and Democrats – 47 of the 48 Senate Democrats have already signed on. AFL-CIO and Communications Workers of America (CWA) went as far as to suggest the PRO Act serve as a litmus test for labor’s election endorsements.
According to a June article by People’s World, when Rep. Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, voted against the PRO Act in 2019, the state AFL-CIO rescinded invitations to their future events and held demonstrations at his office. Eventually, he changed his vote.
Republicans, who receive far less financial support from unions, are generally opposed to the bill. House Republicans on the Committee on Education and Labor even have a different name for the bill: the (PRO) Union Bosses Act.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the act would, “undermine worker rights, ensnare employers in unrelated labor disputes, disrupt the economy, and force individual Americans to pay union dues regardless of their wishes.”