As House floor debate on the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act is suspended due to the House shifting to the final vote on the “American Rescue” bill, the PRO Act proponents shifted their attention to independent contractors opposition to the PRO Act last week

Last Thursday (March 4), the proponents of the PRO Act shifted their messaging tactics, beginning with the AFL-CIO tweeting the following including the slide:

“The PRO Act’s ABC test provides a clear and fair method for ensuring that employees receive the NLRA’s protections–nothing more.”

AFL-CIO tweet, 3/4/21

New Jersey-based freelance writer Kim Kavin, a co-leader of Freelancers USA, did another one of her markups to the slide from AFL-CIO getting to the whole truth about the ABC test:

Thank you Kim Kavin for another piercing to the truth what the AFL-CIO and their proponents trying to pull against 1099 workers.

Now, the Democrats who run the House think Americans have forgotten the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) rewrite bill, incorporating the same discredited ABC test into the FLSA.

We haven’t, and I posted this article last September 27 here on McHenry County Blog with the bill sponsored by U.S. Senator (now chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee) Patty Murray (D, WA), Senator Sherrod Brown (D, Ohio) and Congresswoman (now Appropriations Committee chair) Rosa DeLauro (D, CT-03).

And as published here on McHenry County Blog last June, then-candidate (now President) Joe Biden’s plan for labor laws not forgotten either.

From the desk of John Lopez: House Democrats playing fast and loose with the truth, and proponents for independent contractors including freelancers and gig economy workers after watching in horror at the carnage of 1099 workers last year under California’s AB5 law, with the same ABC test, are not convinced.

The ABC test needs to be amended out of the final bill the House will pass late tonight. On that note, here is Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s excellent speech to amend the PRO Act with her amendment to strike the ABC test, given at yesterday’s Rules Committee meeting about the PRO Act:

Stefanik’s amendment was dropped by the Rules Committee Democrats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it remerges as the House Republicans’ motion-to-recommit amendment at the end of debate on the PRO Act later tonight.

It’s 4:42PM CST on Tuesday, and the House is still voting on the Rules resolution for tomorrow morning’s debate on the so-called “COVID Relief” bill that passed the Senate over the weekend.

The PRO Act debate will likely start by 5PM CST today.