Employee Rights Act

H.R. 4154, titled the Employee Rights Act, is a comprehensive set of labor-law changes aimed at expanding employer control over organizing, voting, and worker relationships, while adding privacy protections for workers and creating new categories like “independent negotiating.” Key themes include: mandating secret-ballot union elections and restricting voting by workers lacking lawful immigration status; tightening who counts as an employee versus an independent contractor; narrowing the definition of “joint employer” and franchisor liability; creating a formal framework for independent negotiating outside traditional union representation in certain states; and adding protections related to privacy, use of dues, tribal sovereignty, DEI in bargaining, and penalties for union violence. The bill would largely rework how unions can organize, how workers are classified, and how employers and unions interact in the bargaining process. Potential impacts: - Organizing and union power could be more limited or more costly for unions to pursue, due to immigration-status voting bans, secret-ballot emphasis, and new independent-negotiating options. - Employer influence over labor relations would increase, especially through tighter independent-contractor tests, joint-employer standards, and franchisor protections. - Workers’ data privacy would improve in some respects, but unions would receive voter lists with limited contact details, subject to board rules. - Some workers, particularly undocumented workers, could lose standing in union elections under the new voting restrictions. - Additional compliance burdens would arise for employers (voter lists, privacy safeguards, state-structure practices), while states that prohibit mandatory union membership could shape how bargaining occurs.