The House passed Protecting the Right to Organize Act Tuesday night, providing workers with a wide range of rights to organize unions in their workplaces, but the bill facing an uphill battle in the Senate where it will need to gain support from ten Republicans to pass.
Politico reports that the bill passed the House with a 225-206 vote, with five Republicans–Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith from New Jersey; Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania; John Katko of New York; and Don Young of Alaska–joining all but one Democrat to support the bill. Democrat Henry Cuellar of Texas voted against it.
The PRO Act strengthens workers ability to organize and provides protections for union organizers, as well as provide workers who complain about unsafe working conditions. The bill also provides a general protection for some gig workers to be able to unionize, allowing people who work for Uber or DoorDash to organize and get health benefits or overtime.
Prepping for negotiations with the Senate, the bill also includes a “fall back” amendment, that would remove the unionization ability for gig worker but still provide a study on how unionization would impact those workers and the companies.
“People are realizing that unions are important,” House Education and Labor Chair Bobby Scott (D-Va.) told POLITICO. “They noticed this during the pandemic when there were unfair, unsafe working conditions.”