Congressman García Votes to Support Passage of Landmark Pro-Workers Bill

Press Release

Congressman Jesús "Chuy" García (IL-04), Vice Chair of the Labor Caucus, issued the following statement after voting to pass H.R. 842 the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a bill that protects the basic right to form a union by ensuring workers are free to organize without employer interference:

"Working people in Chicago and across the country have had our backs throughout the pandemic, and they put their lives on the line to keep America strong. Still, working people are taken advantage of by employers, subject to harsh or dangerous conditions in the workplace, and denied the right to collectively bargain for better wages and benefits. But across the country workers are standing up and organizing and its time that Congress had their backs.

"Like many immigrant children in Chicago, I learned at a young age that unions are a powerful tool to help women, Latino and Black workers fight discrimination. Both my parents were proud Teamsters and I was still a teenager when I joined the Retail Workers Union before becoming a Teamster and a member of the United Legal Workers Union. Thanks to unions, working families like mine can earn fair wages, safe working conditions, and better healthcare-- matters of life and death in a pandemic.

"This bill is for Amazon workers in my neighborhood fighting for their safety on the warehouse floor; nurses demanding safe staffing levels in hospitals and nursing homes; food processing and meatpacking workers who toil in crowded freezers to provide our food; and Uber, Lyft, and delivery workers who are denied the right to organize. This is the most significant enhancement of workers' rights in more than 80 years.

"The PRO Act will help rebuild our economy, restore our middle class, and help working families, not just the wealthy few, succeed."

A fact sheet on the PRO Act can be found here.

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