Valdez Brings Union Recognition and Job Security to Congress

Card photograph: ARCHIVE. National Labor Relations Board building, September 8, 2012. Photo: Geraldshields11 / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped for the card. License. Adaptation shared under the same license. Source photograph.

Claire Valdez’s November 3 House victory sends a union organizer to Washington with proposals to make majority-backed unions easier to recognize and employers’ retaliation harder to sustain. NPR reported her election among five incoming DSA-backed members; her labor program goes beyond an endorsement of collective bargaining.

Valdez wants recognition when a majority of workers sign union cards, stronger penalties for union-busting and public support for organizing. That is the legislative counterpart to the union canvassing campaigns that brought workers into the election: rules governing who can exercise power once they return to the job.

Donavan McKinney, another incoming member, identifies himself in his platform as a former SEIU Healthcare Michigan member. He links organizing rights and living wages to higher taxes on wealthy households and corporations to finance housing, education and healthcare. The two programs connect bargaining power at work with the distribution of public resources.

From majority support to recognition

ARCHIVE. Shawn Fain, UAW Region 9A organizers and New York elected officials at a Teamsters solidarity rally on Long Island, July 15, 2023. Photo: InformedImages. License. Source photograph.

The NLRB’s guidance describes the existing routes for covered workers. Support from at least 30% can initiate an election; a majority of votes cast wins representation. An employer can also recognize a union voluntarily on evidence of majority support, typically signed cards. Recognition or certification brings an obligation to bargain.

Valdez proposes making majority-card recognition a guarantee rather than leaving that route dependent on an employer’s voluntary acceptance. Her program also backs the PRO Act, stronger enforcement and cutting off federal contracts and subsidies to employers that engage in union-busting.

The public-contract provision would connect a company’s treatment of workers to its access to government business. A contractor could no longer treat federal support as separate from its conduct toward the people doing the work. That would put procurement alongside labor law as a source of pressure on employers.

The cost of challenging the boss

Current protections already prohibit punishment for covered organizing activity. The NLRB says remedies can include reinstatement and lost wages when an employer unlawfully fires a worker. Those protections also extend to certain collective action in workplaces without a union, including workers acting together over pay or unsafe conditions.

Valdez’s separate proposal to end at-will employment would reach the broader insecurity surrounding dismissal. Her platform calls for just-cause protections, public organizing assistance and a federal resource to help workers form unions. These remain campaign commitments, not new federal rights already in force.

Their common target is an employer’s ability to isolate workers before bargaining begins. A legal obligation to recognize majority support, the risk of losing public contracts and protection against arbitrary dismissal would each reduce a different way management can use dependence on a paycheck to discourage collective action.