Senator Mark Warner is one of 3 Democratic Senators, and the ONLY Virginia Democrat in Congress NOT co-sponsoring the PRO Act. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act last year on a bi-partisan basis, but anti-worker legislators in the Senate blocked it.

The PRO Act will address a decades-long assault on American labor law by anti-worker interests. It will empower workers, including gig workers, to organize for better compensation and working conditions. It would also better hold corporations accountable for union-busting - employers currently often violate the rights of workers because there are minor, if any, consequences for doing so.

Under current labor law, gig workers, such as Uber/Lyft drivers or Instacart shoppers, are allowed to be misclassified as "independent contractors". Labor and employment laws do not apply to independent contractors as they do workers classified as "employees", denying gig workers a whole slew of workplace protections, including the right to organize under the National Labor Relations Act.  A new report by the Economic Policy Institute spells out the consequences for these workers - they are much more likely than traditional W-2 service workers to earn not just less than $10/hour, but less than the Federal minimum wage of $7.25. Gig workers are also more likely to go hungry, not have money to pay bills, skip medical care due to cost, or use SNAP than W-2 service-sector workers.

This is a feature, not a bug of gig work and corporations that rely on gig workers to make money invest heavily to keep these workers misclassified and outside of legal protections. Yet, Senator Warner has repeatedly stated that he has not co-sponsored the PRO Act because he is concerned that it would result in gig workers being classified as employees (instead of independent contractors), and thus be allowed to unionize.

Use the form and we’ll connect you to Mark Warner's office. Tell him to show his support for working people by co-sponsoring the PRO Act.