FAIR Act

HR20 — Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2025

Strengthens worker organizing rights and enforcement. The bill broadens who counts as an employee or joint employer and builds tougher remedies, penalties, and election rules to make organizing and bargaining easier to enforce and monitor. - Workers: Expands who is treated as an employee by tightening the three-part test for independent contractors and broadening the joint-employer test to include direct, indirect, and reserved control. It adds clear protections for strike participation and allows back pay without reduction and liquidated damages equal to twice awarded damages. - Employers: Requires prompt disclosure and new notice duties including a detailed voter list within two business days and multilingual employee notices. Noncompliance can trigger civil penalties including up to $50,000 per unfair labor practice, up to $10,000 per refusal to obey Board orders, and fines for posting or voter-list violations. - Elections, agencies, and unions: NLRB must adopt remote electronic voting within one year and aim to hold elections within twenty business days. The bill also boosts NLRB reporting and transparency, expands private suits, and creates new whistleblower protections and expedited enforcement.

HR17 — Paycheck Fairness Act

Strengthening pay equity by expanding who is protected and limiting employers from using past pay, the Paycheck Fairness Act would tighten how pay differences are justified and increase enforcement and data collection. - Workers and prospective employees would gain a ban on employer reliance on wage history and new nonretaliation protections for wage discussions. The bill lets a candidate voluntarily share prior pay only after a job offer and only to justify a higher wage. - Employers would face new civil penalties for wage-history violations starting at $5,000 for a first offense and rising by $1,000 per subsequent offense to a $10,000 cap. Affected workers could recover damages up to $10,000 plus attorneys’ fees and injunctive relief where appropriate. - Federal enforcement and oversight would increase. The EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs would enforce the rules. The bill would create a National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force and require expanded pay-data collection by EEOC, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and OFCCP from federal contractors. Provisions would take effect six months after enactment.

HR5657 — Fair Pay for Federal Contractors Act of 2025

This bill would ensure back pay for employees of federal contractors who lose pay or work when government funding lapses. It would require agencies to raise contract prices to cover reasonable costs contractors face because of a lapse and fund those adjustments from the Treasury for the relevant fiscal year.

HR3112 — Better CARE for Animals Act of 2025

Stronger federal enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act. This bill would require valid licenses for dealers and exhibitors, expand enforcement tools for federal prosecutors and the Secretary of Agriculture, and allow larger fines and animal seizure to stop ongoing harms.

HR2550 — Protect America's Workforce Act

Preserves federal employees' collective bargaining agreements. This Act nullifies the Executive Order titled "Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs." - Federal employees and unions: Collective bargaining agreements that were in effect on March 26, 2025 remain valid and continue to apply through each contract's stated term. - Federal agencies and federal funds: Agencies may not obligate or spend federal funds to carry out that Executive Order, and the Executive Order has no force or effect.

HR51 — Washington, D.C. Admission Act

Full statehood for Washington, Douglass Commonwealth would admit the District of Columbia as a new state on equal footing, while defining a smaller federal "Capital" and setting staged transitions for courts, property, and federal programs. - Capital residents would gain full congressional representation: two U.S. Senators and one U.S. Representative. The bill also requires states to allow "absent Capital" residents to vote by absentee ballot in federal elections. - The U.S. House would be permanently increased to 436 members and apportionment would be adjusted beginning with the first decennial census after admission. - The bill defines the federal Capital with a required 180-day survey, preserves federal court, prosecutorial, prison, parole, National Guard, and employee benefit arrangements on a temporary basis, and phases those responsibilities to the State as it certifies the necessary laws and personnel are in place.