Natural State News

Democratic lawmakers hope to solidify the passage of a federal law that would protect the efforts of workers trying to unionize, but some Republican lawmakers believe it would be bad for the economy.

If passed, the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act, would overturn the status of "right-to-work" states including Arkansas.

"The so-called 'PRO Act' would destroy jobs and weaken our economy by gutting Arkansas's status as a Right to Work state, threatening independent contractor jobs and opening up Arkansas business to a bonanza of unfair lawsuits," state Rep. David Ray (R-Maumelle) told the Natural State News. 

Arkansas Democrats support the legislation and promoted it in a Labor Day tweet. 

"Tomorrow, Arkansas Democrats can get back to the business of passing the PRO act, fighting for a higher minimum wage, and ensuring our tax system favors working people and not corporations. Today, take the day off — you deserve it," the Democratic Party of Arkansas tweeted Sept. 6.

Ray reacted to that tweet with a response of his own.

"The @ArkDems are literally advocating for a law that would gut Arkansas's status as a Right to Work state," Ray tweeted the next day.

One of the five provisions in the act, which recently passed the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, would give unions the power to collect union dues even in so-called right-to-work states, where employees can currently opt out of joining unions, NPR reported. The bill now heads to the U.S. Senate.

States with right-to-work laws have had faster employment growth both historically and in the economic recovery following the coronavirus pandemic, according to an opinion column in Newsweek authored by Mark Nix. Nix is the president of the National Right to Work Committee.

Rachel Greszler, a research fellow for the Heritage Foundation, said about 94% of all private sector employees who are in a union never voted to be a member of it, according to the Heritage Foundation.