WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Rick Larsen (WA-02) voted for critical legislation to protect workers’ right to organize, hold employers accountable for violating workers’ rights and secure free and fair union elections – the most serious upgrade to workers’ collective bargaining rights since the 1930s. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2021 passed the House of Representatives by a final vote of 225 to 206.

“When unions are strong, Washington’s working women and men earn higher wages and better benefits and guarantee a safer workplace,” said Larsen, an original cosponsor of the bill. “Standing with working women and men is personal for me. My dad worked as a lineman for Snohomish County PUD and was a longtime member of IBEW Local 77. Labor literally put a shirt on my back and food on my family’s table growing up. I will continue to stand up and give working people a voice in Congress.”

Larsen is a champion of working women and men in Congress. Larsen recently supported the American Rescue Plan which includes his bipartisan language to help cover costs of pay and benefits for aerospace employees at risk of being furloughed or who were furloughed due to the pandemic. He supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, which would give a raise to 46,000 Second District residents – more than 40 percent of whom are 16- to 24-years old.

A union job is the gateway to the middle class. Union members on average earn nearly 20 percent more than their nonunion counterparts, and more than three out of every four union members have health insurance benefits. However, while union membership remains strong in Washington – 17.4 percent of the statewide workforce (roughly 557,000 Washingtonians) belong to a union – union membership nationwide fell by more than half in just the past four decades. From 1979 to 2019, average incomes for the bottom 90 percent of U.S. households increased just 1.1 percent, while average incomes for the wealthiest 1 percent increased more than 184 percent.

To read the PRO Act, click here.

To read a summary of the bill, click here.

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