Employee Rights Act
S. 2984, titled the Employee Rights Act, is a broad reform of U.S. labor law aimed at shifting several key areas of union organizing, employee status determinations, privacy protections, and governance of labor organizations. It tightens the process for union elections (emphasizing secret ballots), restricts voting eligibility by immigration status, strengthens employee privacy protections around organizing drives, recalibrates what counts as an employee vs. an independent contractor and what constitutes a joint employer, and introduces new concepts like “independent negotiating” in certain states. It also imposes new limits on union dues spending, restricts DEI mandates in bargaining, and criminalizes union-related violence with specific exemptions. The bill represents a substantial pro-employer shift in several core labor-policy areas. If enacted, the bill could reduce union influence in some contexts, alter how employers classify workers, increase regulatory and compliance requirements around organizing drives, and broaden the rights of non-union workers to pursue separate negotiations in certain states. It would also extend tribal sovereignty considerations to labor law and reframe some enforcement and governance aspects of unions and employer-employee relationships.
Key Points
- 1Enhanced union elections: requires that representation decisions be made by secret ballot elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, replacing former language that allowed designation or selection for collective bargaining.
- 2Immigration-status voting restrictions: bars employees who do not have lawful status from voting in Board elections (NLRA, LMRA, and LMRDA); votes by undocumented workers would be invalid, and such workers would not be counted as employees for related petitions.
- 3Employee privacy and data use: requires employers to provide voter lists to labor organizations on request, including names and limited additional contact information chosen in writing by the employee; mandates a searchable electronic format and imposes penalties for improper handling or misuse of such information; also tightens protections on how personal information may be used by unions.
- 4Independent contractor and joint-employer reforms: redefines how to determine whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor, and how to determine joint-employer status. It narrows certain factors that previously could blur worker classifications, and ties the NLRA/JLR standards to a modified Fair Labor Standards Act standard; it also restricts certain franchisor/franchisee relationships from automatically creating employer status.
- 5Independent negotiating and “covered States”: creates a framework for employees in states that prohibit compulsory union membership or dues from engaging in independent negotiating with their employer, potentially limiting union representation in those states; it adds enforcement and representation rules to accommodate independent negotiating and clarifies when such negotiations can occur.