Andy Levin — #PassTheProAct Part 1

I really

Speaker 1: am excited about this hour. I've got a number of our great labor leaders from the state of Michigan with me to give me their two cents on what we're doing here right now in the US House of Representatives, which is debating and passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. And my first guest is Tom Lutz, the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters. Tom, I just am out of breath because I ran back from the floor rebutting some ridiculous Republican amendments to undermine the bill. We will kill them all and pass the bill today. Tell me from your point of view, what is important about the PRO Act to you in

Speaker 2: terms of the problems it solves or what it could accomplish

W

Speaker 3: Well, first of all, let me say thank you. Listen, I'm super proud of the work that you and others are doing

Speaker 4: protecting the right to organize. But it's not just what people think when they say the right to organize. There are a couple of very specific things that deal with the men and women that work in my industry in construction

So

Speaker 4: think about it, you know, for way too long, working with your hands or being in a union, we're not only not respected, they were often viewed as a bad thing. And in this country, it's just not where we can or should be. You know, things like bans on secondary activities, prohibiting picketing and boycotting to support workers around you on job sites and in construction, maybe nothing more important than misclassification of workers. It's just rampant, it

Speaker 5: hurts our communities, It hurts our workers. It hurts the opportunity for good jobs. Yeah

so

Speaker 6: I don't

Speaker 1: so, all right, well, let's talk about the secondary activity thing. That's kind of like a term you and I throw around. But for the average person out there, what are we talking about? In 1947, over Harry Truman's veto, the Republican Congress passed a law

t

Speaker 1: that says if Tom's a carpenter and I'm a truck driver, remember the Teamsters say, and his members are on strike or they're organizing it at some

Speaker 7: shop where carpenters work, and I pull up with my truck, I'm not allowed to say, wait, I'm not crossing that picket line. I'm not allowed to support his activity, why

This

Speaker 7: is America. It was just a throwaway to corporate bosses back

Speaker 8: then. And it's never changed. How long ago was that, Tom? I mean, it's like 60 years ago, 70

It's

Speaker 4: 70 years ago. And although we've had evolution in every part of our economy and jobs and worksites, these laws are archaic. But to be honest with you, why they did it is because it was effective

Speaker 9: You know

Speaker 4: unionized the ability for people to organize and work together for work site safety, right? For better conditions, everything from healthcare to wages and conditions, but workplace safety, first and foremost in construction is always on our mind. And the

The

Speaker 4: ability to help one another is paramount. And that's what they did. You know, they took away the right to boycott. For example, in the Carpenters Union, we have men and women that build things, including things like the International Auto Show. We build those displays. So think about that. Think about how that impacts our local contractors here, many of which reside right here in southeastern Michigan. And then think about for a minute where we're at today

So

Speaker 4: organically, these things have changed because of technology. But if you think about it, today's day and age, you could be working for a company that doesn't only not have a office in the United States, it might not have an office at all. And the reality of that is, is those people have rights too, and they should have rights. And we should be able to band together as

Speaker 10: workers to fight for fair and equitable and good jobs

Speaker 11: Now, you mentioned the whole

Speaker 1: misclassification thing of contractors. I don't think people necessarily understand that. Can you lay that out for us? We tackle that in the PRO Act, but how does a regular person

Speaker 12: understand something like that

What

Speaker 3: misclassification boils down to in construction? So think about it like a job site. You have an owner

who

Speaker 3: hires a prime contractor sometimes called a project manager some called a general contractor and they write a contract to a contractor

rather than

Speaker 3: that contractor providing materials and labor they often then subcontract at work sometimes it's for different

Speaker 4: classifications of work and it's justified but many times it's because they deem to call

Speaker 13: every worker An independent

Speaker 14: contractor

Oh

Speaker 7: we're not talking about the general contractor gets an operating

Speaker 1: engineer company, a carpenter company, a plumber company to do the different parts of the job. They're doing this to undermine the rights of all

Speaker 15: the workers on the job, it sounds like

Y

Speaker 16: Yeah, we

Speaker 4: understand that in construction, a different contractor might represent different parts of the trades. That's why you have things

you know, think

Speaker 4: about us as for example, is the building trades. We have electricians and operators and laborers and carpenters and plumbers and on and on, that's normal. What's not normal and what shouldn't be accepted is when contractors use this intentionally to take away things, to deny things like unemployment, workman's compensation, matching FICA and Social Security, because they call these people companies. They call them independent contractors. Now there's a really long and arduous process of proving this, but the penalties were never there and it shouldn't be allowed. What it didn't allow, was to hold the people that use this practice to get rid of good jobs turning them into more or less gig workers uh for let for lack of a better

Speaker 17: term today before the term was used right

Speaker 4: that's before the term was used as gig workers this was going on in construction and it's worth a ton to our economy to our tax base but it's worth nothing more it's most important

and

Speaker 4: to the men and women that are working on these sites so they have the right to do things like come together and collectively organize to fight for good paying jobs with benefits

Speaker 1: and with safety. And this bill is very clear. It's got the ABC test. And if a worker is truly not in the control of the employer, if they're truly having their own shingle out, they work one day for you, another day for somebody else. If they're truly not a worker on that job site, truly like a plumber who just comes in one day to fix a busted pipe, you know, wouldn't be part of a unit. But it would solve this problem you're talking about of a contractor getting a whole bunch of workers and saying, oh, none of them are employees. They're all just independent. They all work for themselves. They're all independent contractors, even though they're coming and showing up at that

Speaker 18: job site every day and together building that, you know, building or whatever they're doing it would

Speaker 19: solve proact completely it would solve it and think about it. It's through collective

Speaker 4: efforts that we build the building. It's through collective efforts that we fight for good wages and good benefits and good opportunities. And that must be true for those employees at well, no matter what you call them. And to hold those individuals, think about the current way it's written. Those individuals are the ones charged with violations

Speaker 3: They're the ones pursued when, in effect, sometimes it's bad contractors and bad players that are taking advantage of these old laws. And we need to fix them. We need to bring our

Speaker 20: labor standards up to match today's work environments

And

Speaker 21: that's what we're doing today. Tom, I thank

you so

Speaker 1: much for joining us. Before I let you go, I got to tell you that last week we had our... Our Democratic Issues Conference and your international president, Doug McCarron, came on and

Speaker 12: he did such a great job speaking with Speaker Pelosi. He was one of the featured speakers on our economic session. And, you know, it was just a pleasure to hear him. And the Carpenters are super important to me personally and to our whole country. So thanks for what you do every day and thanks for standing up for the PRO Act and explaining all this to people. Really appreciate it

Speaker 3: Yeah, these are pieces that people don't understand that you're addressing today. They're super important

Speaker 4: because this really isn't about protecting the right to organize. It's about protecting good jobs. People wonder where those good jobs went. Listen, they didn't just go away. They changed what they called them and they implemented rules that harmed workers and took away our rights to organize and defend ourselves in a tough economy. And to be honest, the work that you're doing isn't just for individual workers. It's for good jobs. And it's most importantly, good employers because they're the ones who have to compete with these bad players so thank you so much from my contractors to my membership and and i agree with you a general president mccarron does a great job for the ubc but it's not for them alone he's working for all working people much like you are today thank you so much

Speaker 22: thanks tom thanks for coming on appreciate you