House passes sweeping labor bill

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US House of Representatives passed a sweeping labor bill Wednesday, in an effort to increase workers’ rights in workplace disputes and help employees to unionize, Axios reports. While the bill passed 225-206 with five Republicans in favor, it still has to get through the Senate where it requires 60 GOP lawmakers to approve it.

Titled Protecting the Right to Organize Act, the bill reduces the scope of “right-to-work” laws that allow employees to forgo participating in and paying union dues, Axios said. The legislation would also prevent employers from holding a person’s immigration status against them during employment negotiations.

In a statement supporting the bill on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said it “would dramatically enhance the power of workers to organize and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”

“As America works to recover from the devastating challenges of deadly pandemic, an economic crisis, and reckoning on race that reveals deep disparities, we need to summon a new wave of worker power to create an economy that works for everyone,” Biden said.

In a separate statement, the US Chamber of Commerce said the bill 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.”

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