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PDA Stands in Solidarity with Labor to Rebuild Middle Class America

Sep 6, 2020

In solidarity,

Alan Minsky, Executive Director for Mike F., Mike H., Donna, Deb, Janis, Dan, Bryan, Kim, and Dr. Bill—your Progressive Democrats of America Team

Celebrate Labor Day Weekend by becoming a PDA sustainer
Support our efforts to rebuild the American Middle Class
alongside our partners in the US Labor Movement
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In the 1950s and ’60s, the powerful American labor movement forged the most prosperous middle class society in human history. Now, in the 21st Century, organized labor remains essential to our hopes to transform society in a positive, inclusive direction. Yet labor union membership has been declining since the days of Ronald Reagan.

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is working to turn that dangerous trend around in a big way.

Last February, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives passed a sweeping piece of legislation called the Protect the Right to Organize Act, aka the PRO Act—which, in one fell swoop, would reverse decades of right-wing anti-union legislation. It would:

  • Penalize employers who fire or retaliate against workers trying to form a union
  • Streamline the union certification process (though not via ‘card check’)
  • Prohibit employers from forcing employees to attend anti-union meetings
  • Eliminate right-to-work laws, which now exist in 27 states
  • Ban the permanent replacement of striking workers
  • Legalize secondary boycotts and picketing (though, not yet, solidarity strikes; which were made illegal by 1947’s hideous Taft-Hartley Act)
  • Make it harder to classify workers as independent contractors (similar to California’s AB5 bill, which Uber and Lyft are fighting)

Pitch in each month to sustain PDA’s pro-labor organizing

PDA is committed to making sure the PRO Act is signed into law after we achieve our goals this fall of winning the Senate and the White House and holding the House. It won’t be easy. In 2009, we had a Democratic President and huge majorities in both Houses of Congress.

Even though Obama and the Democrats had campaigned in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, the signature pro-labor legislation of that time, they failed to pass it once in office—and by 2010 their majorities evaporated. The big problem then as now is that too few people know about these signature pro-labor proposals in Congress.

With your help, PDA will not allow that to happen again.

This time, PDA will work with organized labor to mobilize the support of millions of progressives—some union members, but mostly not—to demand passage of the PRO Act.

Indeed, if the Democrats win this fall, the PRO Act will join Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and the Breathe Act as among PDA’s top legislative priorities.

American labor is essential to building the inclusive, prosperous, healthy, and well-educated middle class society we all want in America.

Help PDA organize with labor to achieve our goals by becoming a PDA sustainer, giving whatever you can afford every month.

 

P.S. In two months’ time, the elections will be over. Now is the time to support PDA’s phone banks and other work to elect progressive champions. Pitch in each month to help progressives win this November and beyond.

We don’t ask for dues. We rely on small donations from people like you. If you’ve donated before, now is the time to sign up to make automatic monthly “sustainer” contributions to support our organizing.

If you’re already a sustainer, we appreciate your help! If you can, please consider increasing your sustaining donation by giving an additional amount per month.

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