Vote Smart - Facts For All

See How Your Politicians Voted

Title: Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2019

Vote to pass a bill that amends the National Labor Relations Act and related labor laws to extend protections to labor union workers.

Prohibits an employer from promising, threatening, or taking any action (Sec. 2):

To permanently replace an employee who participates in a strike;
To discriminate against an employee who is working or has unconditionally offered to return to work for the employer because the employee supported or participated in such a strike; or
To lockout, suspend, or otherwise withhold employment from employees in order to influence the position of such employees, or the representative of such employees, in collective bargaining prior to a strike.

Prohibits an employer from communicating or misrepresenting to an employee that such an employee is excluded from the definition of an employee, as established in this act (Sec. 2).
Specifies that it is an unfair labor practice for any employer (Sec. 2):

To enter into or attempt to enforce any agreement, whereby prior to a dispute to which the agreement applies, an employee promises not to pursue, bring, join, litigate, or support any kind of joint, class, or collective claim arising from or relating to the employment of such employee in any forum that, but for such agreement, is competent jurisdiction;
To coerce an employee into undertaking or promising not to pursue, bring, join, litigate, or support any kind of joint, class, or collective claim arising from or relating to the employment of such employee; or
To retaliate against an employee for refusing to promise not to pursue, bring, join, litigate, or support any kind of joint, class, or collective claim arising from or relating to the employment of such employee.

Specifies that an individual performing a service is considered an “employee” and not an independent contractor, unless (Sec. 2):

The individual is free from control and direction in connection with the performance of the service, both under the contract for the performance of service and in fact;
The service is performed outside the usual course of the business of the employer; and
The individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business of the same nature as that involved in the service performed.

Defines “supervisor” as any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer and for a majority of the individual’s work time, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, reward, discipline other employees, or adjust grievances, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment (Sec. 2).
Requires any person who fails or neglects to obey an order of the National Labor Relations Board to pay a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation (Sec. 2).
Specifies that the above-mentioned penalty may be recovered in a civil action in a US district court (Sec. 2).
Specifies that any employer who commits an unfair labor practice will be subject to a civil penalty of up to $50,000 for each violation, unless the violation results in the discharge of an employee or causes other serious economic harm to an employee, in which case they will be subject to a civil penalty of up to $100,000 (Sec. 12).
Authorizes any person who has been injured by a violation of this act to bring a civil action in the appropriate US district court against the employer, 60 days following the filing of a charge with the Board alleging an unfair labor practice (Sec. 12).

Title: Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2019

Navigation