President Donald Trump ran on a platform of empowering workers, and a new bill in Congress will help him keep that promise. On April 17, Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) introduced the Start Applying Labor Transparency Act, which would require unions to practice the same transparency as businesses when it comes to talking to workers about unionization. This commonsense reform will ensure workers are able to make a fully informed decision about whether to join a union.
Unions are taking advantage of a loophole in federal law. Currently, businesses are legally required to disclose when they hire a consultant to talk with workers about unionization, but labor unions are held to a different standard. They can secretly place organizers in workplaces they want to unionize, undermining transparency and accountability. These organizers are called “salts,” and the SALT Act is designed to bring them into the open.
Practically, union organizers apply for a job and spend their days trying to convince workers that joining a union is in their interest. At no point do the salts have to tell their coworkers that they’re paid by a labor union and only took the job to push unionization. At no point do they have to disclose to the company that’s paying their wages that they’re also paid by a union.
Workers deserve to know when someone is paid to influence them on such a huge decision. Unionization can have a profound effect on their future. It can also determine the fate of generations of workers at that company, locking them into a union for decades. When so much is on the line, transparency is essential, or else workers won’t have the information needed to make the decision that’s best for them. That’s why federal law requires businesses to be forthcoming with this information. Labor unions should be required to disclose their own activities, preventing them from swaying workers into organizing without all the facts.
Unions know that salting tilts the scale in their favor. Salts pushed workers at Starbucks to organize in 2022 and 2023, with several hundred stores unionizing during that time. Labor activists have said salts are present at Chipotle Mexican Grill. Because salts can keep their identities secret, there’s no way to know how many there are at workplaces across America.
But what is certain is that many workers don’t like it when they learn who the salts really are. In Buffalo, New York, Starbucks employees got upset when they learned that their coworkers were union salts. One employee called salts “very scheme-y,” saying they were “unsettling” because “some of these people I thought were my friends.” Another Starbucks employee lamented that salts were more interested in their jobs with the union than in their fellow baristas. At least 25 Starbucks stores have begun the process of decertifying their unions, potentially reflecting employee anger at having been tricked by salts.
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Workers want real transparency, as does an overwhelming majority of people. The Institute for the American Worker has found that 75% of people support requiring union salts to make the same disclosures as the labor consultants hired by businesses. Nearly 60% want unionization elections with hidden salts to be rejected, which makes sense since workers didn’t have all the information they needed.
Unions won’t be open and transparent on their own, so Congress must step up. The SALT Act requires unions to file detailed public reports within 30 days of hiring a salt — the exact same thing that businesses have to do when they hire labor consultants. Workers deserve the transparency, accountability, and honesty that help them make a fully informed decision about whether unionization is right for them. And Trump can work with Congress to give workers this long-overdue power.
F. Vincent Vernuccio is the president of the Institute for the American Worker.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
