Sponsors (11)
Official title: Reform the labor laws of the United States, and for other purposes.
Introduced October 8, 2025 by Tim Scott · Last progress October 8, 2025
The bill creates clearer rules and new protections for certain worker rights, elections, tribal coverage, and criminal conduct while simultaneously narrowing employer liability and immigration‑related voting rights and increasing potential litigation, compliance costs, and jurisdictional complexity — trading stronger procedural clarity for expanded employer protections and new legal uncertainties that could weaken collective power and worker protections for some groups.
Unionized and nonunion workers gain stronger statutory protections and greater NLRB enforcement against employer harassment or anti‑union conduct, improving deterrence of unlawful employer interference in organizing and bargaining.
Peaceful picketers and routine nonviolent labor actions are explicitly protected from federal prosecution and longstanding labor‑law immunities are preserved, reducing risk of federal intervention in ordinary labor activity.
Businesses and workers get clearer, more uniform tests for independent‑contractor status and a tighter joint‑employer/franchisee standard, reducing ambiguity for employers and lowering litigation risk for franchise systems.
Employers, unions, and taxpayers face increased litigation, administrative and compliance costs and legal uncertainty because broadened definitions (e.g., unlawful harassment, dues rules, DEI limits) and new enforcement paths invite more unfair‑labor practice claims and disputes.
Narrowing of the joint‑employer and independent‑contractor standards risks leaving many workers who function like employees without wage, overtime, or NLRA protections and reduces avenues to hold multiple firms accountable for labor violations.
Excluding workers without lawful immigration status from union voting and from being counted as employees reduces their workplace voice, makes unionization harder in workplaces with many undocumented workers, and may prompt employer status inquiries and privacy/retaliation risks.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Changes union‑selection to Board secret ballots, excludes unauthorized immigrants from labor votes, tightens contractor/joint‑employer tests, limits dues use, restricts DEI in CBAs, and creates individual bargaining rights in covered States.
This bill makes sweeping changes to federal labor law: it narrows how unions become exclusive bargaining reps by requiring Board-run secret-ballot elections, restricts who counts as employees or voters in labor elections by excluding individuals lacking lawful immigration status, tightens tests for independent-contractor and joint‑employer status, protects certain employee contact data while limiting unions’ use of it, creates a right for workers in designated "covered States" to negotiate individually after leaving or stopping payments to a union, bans employer contract provisions that mandate or promote DEI programs, and revises Hobbs Act federal jurisdiction with new exemptions for some labor-dispute conduct. Several provisions add new unfair‑labor‑practice definitions, require NLRB rulemaking, and change statutory definitions (including adding Indian/tribal land terms).