The Pro Act

We, the 50th Chicano Moratorium Committee, representing the Chicano / Mexicano / Latino communities in Los Angeles, California, support the proposed PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act HR 2474, passed March 9, 2021, and we call upon all communities and organizations to take action and reach out to all our elected officials to support its passage in the Senate.

The PRO Act would prevent employer interference in union elections, prohibit mandatory anti-union company meetings, remove prohibitions of worker-to-worker solidarity actions, require workers to pay dues where an existing union contract is in place, create a mediation process to ensure first contracts, prevent misclassifying workers as “independent contractors”, prohibit employers from using immigration status in determining terms of employment, authorize penalties to employers that violate worker rights, and disclose contracts of anti-union consultants hired to defeat union election campaigns.

We, the working people of the U.S., have a rich history demanding the right to form unions, to negotiate hours and working conditions and to establish benefit programs for our families through labor contracts, enforceable by law. Our communities here in the U.S. have made our best economic progress as part of and with the labor movement, even though we have been excluded from the benefits of unionization by unfair laws based on our work types, citizenship status, gender and nationality in the ongoing effort to divide workers, segregate industries, and super-exploit vulnerable migrant workers for the benefit of the economic elite who continue to profit from and control our economy through these tactics.

The union movement has been under fierce attack since its inception. These attacks have become fiercer now more than ever by the global corporate conglomerates that control the economy, educational institutions, media outlets, manufacturing, retail sales, finance etc., by way of using runaway shops both in anti-union states and internationally, including disinvesting at home and reinvesting in cheap labor abroad. The deregulation of industries on the domestic front has allowed the elites to flip the script by removing fair market regulations and by creating the “independent contractor” model, hitting at the heart of good jobs and promoting deregulation across all industries in the U.S.

Our most vulnerable communities have now been classified as the “essential workers” during the pandemic but treated as the bottom rung of workers without the right to organize fairly under the law. The PRO Act will remedy these disparaging inequalities and re-establish a balanced format for all our working families as a matter of justice for a fair economic future.

PRO Act Yes!