https://actionnetwork.org/forms/proactphonebank

This bad boy has passed the house and is one its way to the senate. If you want something to do that isn't yelling at your comrades on this dark corner of the internet, why don't you try convincing constituents in key states to yell at their senators in the dark corners of power!

TL;DR - This is an opportunity to do something from the comfort of your home that will help you develop the skills necessary for organization, connect you with people who will work with you to help workers, and just maybe give workers in the US the legal protections we need to unionize and realize the collective power necessary to begin challenging finance capital.

This is an important piece of legislation and a great opportunity for us all to practice our ability to communicate with people who aren't terminally online and also have a real stake in the future of labor in the United States. I know phonebanking might seem scary, but if I can get over my misgivings to cold call a bunch of strangers in the interest of labor rights, so can you!

WHAT'S THE BILL?

With the passage of Prop 22 in California, we are on the precipice of the destruction of labor protections in the United States. The PRO Act contains, among many tasty protections from union-busting and retaliation, a legislative foundation to deny the reclassification of broad swathes of workers as independent contractors, enjoying none of the hard-fought rights and protections won by the labor movements of yesteryear.

To quote:

(b) Employee.—Section 2(3) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. 152(3)) is amended by adding at the end the following:“An individual performing any service shall be considered an employee (except as provided in the previous sentence) and not an independent contractor, unless—

“(A) the individual is free from control and direction in connection with the performance of the service, both under the contract for the performance of service and in fact;

“(B) the service is performed outside the usual course of the business of the employer; and

“(C) the individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business of the same nature as that involved in the service performed.”.

And this is the key bit:

(except as provided in the previous sentence)

refers to this:

The term "employee" shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless this subchapter explicitly states otherwise, and shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment, but shall not include any individual employed as an agricultural laborer, or in the domestic service of any family or person at his home, or any individual employed by his parent or spouse, or any individual having the status of an independent contractor, or any individual employed as a supervisor, or any individual employed by an employer subject to the Railway Labor Act [45 U.S.C. 151 et seq.], as amended from time to time, or by any other person who is not an employer as herein defined.

Which gives a whole load of exceptions wherein a worker can be considered an independent contractor. BUT with those ABC conditions in this bill, you cannot be considered an independent contractor unless meeting those conditions, which will make it a hell of a lot harder for companies to transition their business model from maintaining a labor force they are obliged by law to provide some modicum of regard for to a just-in-time contracted labor model where you, the worker, have fuck all to stand on, having "voluntarily" entered into the contract.

WHY BOTHER?

I hope this gives a little picture of why this is an important and useful bill that should be fought for. Maybe you think it won't work! Maybe you think that it'll never pass! I don't care! The important part is to engage yourself in struggle. The left is adrift in the United States and it will stay that way until we realize, through collective struggle, how to combat the machine that would grind us into meal. We can spend all fucking day cutting pieces of ourselves away to become the purest leftist, or we can take the first step into struggle and find out what we're made of and what it takes to fucking get something done.

SO LET'S GET IT.

P.S. if you don't like the DSA there are other orgs you can phonebank with, but who fucking cares?