CWF in Townhall

Posted by Olivia Grady on Thursday, March 12th, 2020 at 1:00 pm - Permalink

Today, Townhall published an article by Senior Fellow Olivia Grady. The article, “Biden Has a Plan for American Workers: Unemployment” is about how harmful Biden’s plans are for American workers:

“American workers will likely have two choices this November for President: a pro-worker President who has substantially reduced unemployment or a former Vice President whose policies help big labor bosses at the expense of workers. Simply put, Joe Biden’s plan for American workers is a big labor boss wish list of proposals that have been proven time and again to lead to unemployment.

One example is his support for California’s ABC test in AB5, which has forced many groups to consider their independent contractors as employees. On his website, Biden states “As president, Biden will work with Congress to establish a federal standard modeled on the ABC test for all labor, employment, and tax laws.” Unfortunately, this test has devastated California independent contractors, including journalists. Vox Media, for example, announced that it would fire hundreds of freelance writers living in California because of this law. Other groups are responding by getting exemptions from the law. Big labor bosses, however, support AB5 because they can unionize employees, not independent contractors.

Another example is Biden’s support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or PRO Act. The U.S. House of Representatives just passed this radical legislation. Part of the bill even includes adopting California’s ABC test at the federal level. Some estimate that this part of the bill alone would put 57 million independent contractors out of work.

Another provision in the bill would expand the definition of joint employer. After President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board expanded the definition in 2015, the franchise industry lost 376,000 job opportunities. In addition, this expanded definition cost franchise businesses $33.3 billion per year and led to 93% more lawsuits.

The PRO Act doesn’t end there. Another provision in this bill effectively ends 27 state right-to-work laws. Between 2008 and 2018 though, the percentage growth in the number of people employed in right-to-work states was 10.8%, while the percentage growth in forced-unionism states was only 5%. These are just a few of the bad provisions in the PRO Act that would kill jobs. Other provisions in the bill also reduce privacy for American workers and impact their First Amendment rights.

Big labor union bosses, however, support this legislation because the PRO Act forces workers to join and support labor unions.”

To read the entire article, please click here.