Why the PRO Act keeps coming back

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act has been introduced in every Congress since 2019. It has passed the House twice. It has stalled in the Senate twice. It will be reintroduced.

The reason it keeps coming back is that the underlying problem keeps getting worse. Union density in the US has fallen from roughly 35% of workers in the 1950s to under 10% today. Polling on union approval is at multi-decade highs — most Americans say they would join a union if one existed at their workplace. The gap between approval and density is the gap that the PRO Act is designed to close.

This brief walks through what the PRO Act actually does, clause by clause, and why each clause matters.

1. End captive-audience meetings

Under current law, employers can require workers to attend meetings on company time at which the employer presents anti-union arguments. Workers cannot leave without risking discipline. They cannot bring questions or counter-information. They cannot have union representatives respond.

These meetings — known as captive-audience meetings — are not a side feature of US union-busting. They are a central feature. Most successful anti-union campaigns rely on them.

The PRO Act would prohibit them. Workers could still listen to anti-union messaging if they chose to; employers could not require them to listen on company time. Several states (Connecticut, Maine, New York, others) have passed state-level captive-audience prohibitions; the NLRB issued a 2024 ruling applying the same principle. The PRO Act would codify it federally.

2. Restore card-check recognition

Currently, when a majority of workers at a workplace sign authorization cards saying they want a union, the employer can refuse to recognize the union and demand a separate secret-ballot election. The interval between card collection and election is when most union campaigns are defeated. Employers use it to reassign organizers, fire ringleaders (often illegally, with toothless penalties), run captive-audience meetings, hire union-busting consultants, and delay the election as long as procedurally possible.

Card-check recognition would treat a signed-card majority as sufficient for recognition, eliminating the gap. This is the standard practice in most other advanced economies. It does not eliminate elections — it just makes them not the default.

The objection that card-check creates pressure on workers to sign is not without merit. The PRO Act addresses it through standard NLRB anti-coercion enforcement. The empirical record from card-check states (and from periods when card-check was the default in some industries) is that the practice is not meaningfully more coercive than the alternative.

3. First-contract arbitration

Under current law, even after a union is certified, the employer is not required to actually reach a contract. The employer must “bargain in good faith” — a standard that has been read so narrowly by the NLRB and the courts that it is rarely enforced in practice. Roughly half of newly certified unions never reach a first contract.

The PRO Act would require mandatory mediation if no contract is reached within 90 days of bargaining commencement, and binding arbitration if no contract is reached within an additional 30 days. The arbitrator would impose a contract.

This is the single most consequential clause for workers. A union without a contract has no enforceable wage scale, no grievance procedure, no protection against arbitrary discipline. The first-contract gap is where most anti-union campaigns ultimately succeed even when the certification campaign failed.

4. Override state right-to-work laws

Twenty-eight states currently have “right-to-work” laws — a misleading name for laws prohibiting union security clauses (which require workers in unionized workplaces to either join the union or pay fair-share fees). The empirical effect of right-to-work laws is to weaken unions financially: workers benefit from union-negotiated contracts whether they pay or not, so the rational choice is to free-ride.

The PRO Act would override state right-to-work laws for private-sector workers. (Public-sector workers are governed by Janus v. AFSCME, which extended right-to-work-style restrictions nationwide; reversing Janus requires either a constitutional amendment or a future Supreme Court ruling.)

This is the most contested clause politically because it directly preempts state law. The constitutional basis — federal labor law preempts state law in the private sector — is well established. The political cost is real.

5. End permanent-replacement workers during strikes

Under current law, employers can permanently replace workers who go on strike for economic reasons. The strikers technically retain the right to be reinstated when positions become available, but in practice the right is rarely usable — replacement workers fill the positions, and the strikers are out of work.

The PRO Act would prohibit permanent replacement of strikers. Employers could still hire temporary replacements. The right to strike, in the US, has been hollow for decades because of the permanent-replacement loophole; closing it restores the actual leverage of the strike.

6. Misclassification crackdown

The PRO Act adopts a strict ABC test (similar to California’s AB 5) for distinguishing employees from independent contractors under the National Labor Relations Act. Workers presumed to be employees unless the employer proves all three prongs: independence from control, work outside the usual course of business, and customary independent trade.

This matters because independent contractors have no NLRA rights. The classification of platform workers (Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart) and many gig workers as contractors writes them out of federal labor protection. The PRO Act narrows that escape valve significantly.

7. Meaningful penalties

Currently, when employers commit unfair labor practices — illegal firings, illegal interrogations, illegal threats, illegal refusal to bargain — the standard remedy is back pay and reinstatement of the worker, often years later. The penalty for the employer is approximately zero.

The PRO Act introduces civil penalties (up to $50,000 per violation, doubled for repeat offenders), personal liability for executives in serious cases, and front-pay where reinstatement is not feasible. This is the structural fix for a system in which unfair-labor-practice penalties have been an accepted cost of business since the 1980s.

What the PRO Act would not do

It does not establish German-style codetermination (workers on boards). It does not establish sectoral bargaining (industry-wide contracts). It does not change Section 7 protections for non-union concerted activity. It does not establish public-sector bargaining rights at the state level, where they don’t already exist. It does not amend Janus.

It does not, in other words, transform US labor relations into a different system. It restores meaningful enforcement of the system the US has had since 1935.

What to watch

• Reintroduction in the 119th Congress. Already introduced in the House.
• Senate procedural posture. The 60-vote cloture requirement has been the binding constraint. Any change to filibuster rules, however narrow, would alter the path.
• State-level analogues. New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, and others are advancing state-level versions of specific PRO Act provisions (captive-audience prohibitions in particular).
• NLRB rulemaking. The Board can implement parts of the PRO Act administratively. Track member appointments and case priorities.

Bottom line

The PRO Act is the most consequential pro-labor legislation seriously considered in the United States since the 1930s. It would not, by itself, restore historical union density. It would create the legal conditions under which doing so is possible.