Sponsors (218)
Official title: To amend the National Labor Relations Act, the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, and the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 5, 2025 by Robert C. Scott · Last progress March 5, 2025
The bill substantially strengthens workers’ rights, union access, transparency, and enforcement — improving remedies and participation for many employees — while increasing costs, legal exposure, administrative burdens, and some privacy and due‑process concerns for employers and agencies.
Millions of workers — including gig and contractor workers — would more often be classified as employees (and subject to joint‑employer rules), giving them greater access to unionization, collective bargaining, and NLRA protections.
Employees and union organizers would get clearer notice, multilingual materials, expedited representation processes, and the option of remote voting—making elections more accessible and likely increasing participation in union representation.
Workers harmed by unfair labor practices would have stronger, faster remedies — expanded damages (full back pay, front pay, liquidated damages), a private right of action, recovery of attorneys’ fees, expungement of adverse records, and set Department of Labor timelines for investigations.
Employers — especially small businesses — would face higher compliance costs, increased civil exposure, and larger potential penalties (including substantial per‑violation fines and increased damages), raising operating costs and potential prices or reduced hiring.
Broader employee classifications and tougher joint‑employer rules are likely to spur more litigation and create uncertainty for businesses about workforce classification and liability, increasing legal and administrative burdens.
Expanded Board enforcement powers (self‑enforcing orders, civil penalties, and quicker court enforcement) raise the risk that employers will face swift penalties and enforcement actions before full judicial review.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Broadens employee and joint-employer definitions, narrows LMRDA exemptions, adds whistleblower protections, and requires remote NLRB representation elections and expanded reporting.
Changes how federal labor law defines who is an employee, who is a joint employer, and who is a supervisor — making it easier for workers and unions to claim employee status and to hold multiple businesses jointly liable. It narrows a reporting exemption under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, creates statutory whistleblower protections for people who report or participate in proceedings under these labor laws, and requires the NLRB to implement remote electronic representation elections and expanded case-level reporting. Also updates cross-references in related labor statutes, repeals an older private cause-of-action provision, directs a GAO study on sectoral collective bargaining, includes severability and appropriation language, and suspends automatic report elimination for certain NLRB reports effective January 1, 2027.