Washington, D.C. — David Madland, Director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, released the following statement today on the introduction of the Workplace Action for a Growing Economy, or WAGE, Act. The bill, which is authored by Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) and House Committee on Education and the Workforce Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA), is aimed at strengthening the National Labor Relations Act, or NLRA, to better protect workers and improve the enforcement of labor law so that workers can exercise their rights under the law without unfair retaliation.
Eighty years ago, the landmark NLRA was enacted to establish a basic slate of protections for workers, including the right to organize and bargain collectively, free from the threat of being fired, demoted, or other forms of retaliation. While the NLRA was and remains one of our nation’s most important labor laws, workers today often still face unfair retribution for attempting to organize a union, with insufficient penalties for the employers that break the law and little redress for affected employees.
We know that when workers join together, good things happen: wages rise, economic mobility is greater, and our country is stronger. Right now, our labor laws are shamefully weak and fail to adequately protect workers who want to make their workplace better. The WAGE Act would help protect the rights of all workers to join together to improve the quality of their jobs.
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