Labor Bill Could Turn Many Insurance Producers Into Employees: NAIFA

The PRO Act could complicate many insurance producers' tax filing status, NAIFA says in an email sent to its members. The act also could disrupt prevailing insurance and financial services distribution models, NAIFA says.

Fans and Foes

Scott said in a comment in the bill introduction announcement, that the main provisions in the bill will shore up workers' ability to join unions, and help workers and unions respond to a decades-long assault on workers' rights.

That assault "has suppressed union membership and eroded America's middle class," Scott said. "The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the urgent need for Congress to protect and strengthen workers' rights. Over the past year, workers across the country have been forced to work in unsafe conditions for insufficient pay, because they lacked the ability to stand together and negotiate with their employer."

Murray said the PRO Act bill would restore workers' ability to "join together to demand their fair share of the economic growth they drive."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is leading opposition to the bill, calling it "a litany of almost every failed idea from the past 30 years of labor policy."

The Chamber's employee policy division says in an analysis of the bill that the independent contractor classification provision could make it easier for workers to join unions. Under the current labor laws, "independent contractors are not eligible to unionize, which has been a source of great frustration for labor leaders," the Chamber employee policy division says.

The Chamber employee policy division says that part of the independent contractor classification provision in the PRO Act bill is identical to the language in AB 5, but that the provision is missing the many exemptions included in AB 5.