Biden Backs Law That Could Put 57 Million Americans Out of Work
Democrats want as many Americans out of work and dependent on the government as possible — and one of their newest legislative pushes makes that an indisputable fact.
Although President Joe Biden has been doing his best to depress the American economy by killing thousands of union jobs and furthering America’s plunge into generational debt, it’s all a pittance compared to what the Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2021 could do if signed into law.
The PRO Act, passed by the House of Representatives last month and endorsed by Biden this week, could obliterate as many as 57 million jobs — that’s how many Americans freelanced in 2019, according to a survey released that year — by essentially outlawing freelance employment.
Writing Tuesday for the Washington Examiner, commentator Brad Polumbo focused on the way the legislation would target the gig economy that many in the workforce enjoy.
While the aim of the legislation is ostensibly to stop employers from “misclassifying” employees for the company’s own cost-savings benefit, it would effectively throw millions of people out of work.
“But the PRO Act’s redefinition of freelance worker is so narrow that a worker can only provide a company with a freelance service that is outside its normal purview,” Polumbo wrote.
“For example, Uber is a driving company. It couldn’t hire drivers as freelancers, but it could potentially hire a janitor as a freelancer.”
(An opinion piece in The Hill provides a more detailed explanation of why this would be the case. In short, contractors would have to be classified as employees unless their work “is performed outside the usual course of the business of the employer.” In the journalism field, for instance, this requirement “is impossible to satisfy for writers who create the product that publications publish in the usual course of their business,” Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys Caleb Trotter and Jim Manley wrote, adding that “The same goes for musicians, comedians, actors, grant writers, graphic designers and countless other professionals who have built themselves into successful microbusinesses.”)
And far from being exploitative, Polumbo asserted that many workers choose those arrangements for flexibility — and make a good living in the process.
“The president is really just doing the bidding of labor union officials who want to outlaw competition to their traditional business model,” he wrote.
“So, yes, Biden’s latest endorsement might make union officials happy — but there’s nothing pro-labor about it all.”
Similar to California’s Assembly Bill 5, which spelled disaster for the gig economy, the PRO Act changes the criteria for what constitutes an employer and employee, and fortifies the National Labor Relations Act, according to Fox News.
It attempts to prevent companies from replacing striking workers and override 27 states’ right-to-work laws, which currently allow employees to opt out of unions completely.
Democrats have focused on freelancers under the guise of helping those workers. But — like the endless parade of failed policies the left foists upon the world — this bill does the opposite.
The nonprofit Independent Women’s Forum, an advocacy group, pointed out the problems that AB5 caused and warned that the same issues will arise if the PRO Act becomes law.
“Proponents of the law argued that this would help workers by making them employees of the companies they worked for and thus receive benefits such as paid time off, sick leave, etc.,” IWF policy analyst Charlotte Whelan’s statement on the group’s website began.
“What proponents of AB5 failed to take into account is that many individuals become independent contractors by choice. They value the freedom and flexibility offered by contract work; while they may not get paid time off or other such benefits, those benefits are more than outweighed by the ability to choose when, where, and how they work,” she wrote.
“In fact,” Whelan continued, “many contractors say that they make more money as contractors than they would as traditional employees. And they enjoy the ability to balance their work with other responsibilities in their lives such as caring for an elderly family member or children.”
“The PRO Act would destroy job opportunities for millions of Americans throughout the country,” she added.
“Instead of limiting opportunities, lawmakers should expand worker freedom and allow Americans to choose the life and work opportunities that they desire,” Whelan concluded.
Leftists package these policies as helpful and worker-oriented, but they’re just another way to keep the union contributions flowing directly into Democrats’ coffers.
This is apparent from the way the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations crafted a tweet that looked like a teenage girl expressing her devotion to the latest boy band craze, urging users to “Retweet if you really (x21) think it’s time to pass the #PROAct.”
Retweet if you
really
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think it’s time to pass the #PROAct.— AFL-CIO // Pass the #PROAct (@AFLCIO) March 6, 2021
Gig workers are not unsuspecting rubes being duped by mean old mustache-twisting corporate villains, but rather autonomous professionals carving out the kind of workday — and career — they please.
They don’t need “help” from giant government overhauls, and they certainly don’t need to be thrown out of a job by companies that won’t be able to afford to keep up with Democrats’ new rules about who and how they can hire.
Government needs to get out of the way and certainly doesn’t need to do anything else to actively kill jobs — unless of course, the aim is to get as many people as possible dependent on the government dole.
It’s increasingly apparent that Democrats hate for anyone to earn a living without relying on help from them — and they’ll do all they can to put a stop to it.
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