Last week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) held a hearing on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. See our previous post on this, as well as an op-ed from HLF’s president.
The hearing showed just how disastrous the passage of this bill would be for our nation’s workforce.
If the PRO Act becomes law, tens of millions of Americans who are currently independent contractors stand to have their livelihoods upended. The bill goes far beyond providing workers with a greater protections to organize, as proponents have argued. Under the legislation’s strict worker classification standard, known as the ABC Test, many businesses would be forced to either hire their independent contractors as employees, or terminate the relationships entirely.
In California, where the ABC Test was implemented in 2020, many businesses were forced to choose the latter. This resulted in backlash from countless independent contractors and freelance workers who had their lives flipped upside down. Many had their flexible work arrangements eliminated, and their future work opportunities extinguished.
Latinos represented a large proportion of those impacted by California’s ABC Test, given the community’s large presence in industries that rely on independent workers. Unfortunately, if Congress decides to ignore the disastrous results from California and use the ABC Test for use on the federal level, it will almost certainly lead to a repeat of California’s experience. This spells trouble for workers across the country.
In last week’s hearing, the testimony by witness Jyoti Sarolia, the principal and managing partner of Ellis Hospitality, provided a clear picture of how damaging this policy would be for everyday Americans. Sarolia testified that a nationwide ABC Test would likely end her ability to remain independent, which would disincentivize the hotel chain she manages properties for to renew her contract. This, she predicted, would deal a death blow to her business resulting in her employees being out of a job. Of course Ms. Sarolia’s story is just one of many.
The ABC Test will not just apply to organizing efforts, as some have incorrectly claimed. Instead, it will upend the ability of millions of Americans to earn a living. Now more than ever, lawmakers must protect workers and halt consideration of this ill-advised piece of legislation.
Why, then, are some lawmakers in Washington insistent on replicating California’s failed experiment? After the Senate HELP Committee’s recent hearing, this question has become even more pressing.
