The bill’s intro­duc­tion was announced yes­ter­day at a press con­fer­ence on the Capi­tol Hill lawn head­lined by three of the most pro-labor mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives: Rep. Kei­th Elli­son (D‑Minn.), Rep. John Lewis (D‑Ga.) and Rep. Jer­rold Nadler (D‑N.Y).

Titled the ​“Employ­ee Empow­er­ment Act,” the bill is short and sim­ple. It would add a sin­gle para­graph to the 1935 Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Act giv­ing work­ers the right to sue employ­ers in fed­er­al court for labor law vio­la­tions, in the same way that indi­vid­u­als are allowed to bring law­suits under the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964. Under cur­rent law, work­ers must bring such com­plaints to the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB), which is often crit­i­cized for being very slow to act and offer­ing wronged work­ers lit­tle in the way of compensation.

A civ­il right is any right enshrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion or leg­is­la­tion, such as free­dom of assem­bly or free­dom of the press. The new mea­sure would affirm that labor rights are equal­ly fundamental.

On Wednes­day, a hand­ful of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty law­mak­ers intro­duced a bill to turn the slo­gan ​“Labor Rights are Civ­il Rights” into the law of the land. While admit­ting the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion has lit­tle chance of pas­sage in the cur­rent anti-labor envi­ron­ment, sup­port­ers say they hope shift­ing polit­i­cal winds may favor the bill some­time in the future.

​“Labor rights are real­ly civ­il rights… In the body politic, the spine of that body is the labor move­ment,” Elli­son, the chief spon­sor of the mea­sure, told a small crowd of sup­port­ers. Employ­ers have no fear of the weak enforce­ment pow­ers of the NLRB and see break­ing labor law ​“as a cost of doing busi­ness,” he said. The bill would give labor law addi­tion­al heft, he said, by putting the sub­stan­tial weight of the fed­er­al courts behind it.

A total of 15 House mem­bers have pledged to co-spon­sor the bill. The mea­sure also gained the imme­di­ate sup­port of the AFL-CIO and many oth­er labor and civ­il rights groups. AFL-CIO Pres­i­dent Richard Trum­ka issued a state­ment Wednes­day that read, in part:

​“Once again, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Kei­th Elli­son and John L. Lewis are lead­ing in the fight to improve the lives of mil­lions of hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans… We need com­pre­hen­sive changes to the law to strength­en work­ers’ col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, and the Employ­ee Empow­er­ment Act is an impor­tant piece of those reforms. By beef­ing up the reme­dies for work­ers who face dis­crim­i­na­tion or retal­i­a­tion by their employ­ers for try­ing to form or join a union, the bill strength­ens work­er pro­tec­tions and puts reme­dies under our labor laws on par with our civ­il rights laws. This helps bet­ter pro­tect work­ers’ rights to orga­nize and, when passed, will ben­e­fit work­ers and our entire economy.”

SEIU Pres­i­dent Mary Kay Hen­ry echoed these sen­ti­ments in a state­ment as well, writ­ing, ​“Too often, employ­ees seek­ing to unite with their co-work­ers to demand bet­ter wages, ben­e­fits and work­place safe­ty pro­vi­sions face aggres­sive and often ille­gal anti-union cam­paigns coor­di­nat­ed by their employ­er. Intim­i­da­tion, ille­gal fir­ings, wrong­ful dis­ci­pline and oth­er tac­tics aimed at break­ing work­ers’ will are com­mon­place when they seek to join togeth­er on the job.” The bill also received the endorse­ment of the Nation­al Women’s Law Cen­ter. At the press con­fer­ence, NWLC Senior Coun­sel Liz Wat­son said that women suf­fer dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly from the low wages at many non-union work­places, and thus will par­tic­u­lar­ly gain from broad­er unionization.

Also speak­ing was Richard Kahlen­berg, co-author with Moshe Mar­vit of the 2012 book Why Labor Orga­niz­ing Should Be a Civ­il Right, which was Ellison’s inspi­ra­tion for the bill. Kahlen­berg said pas­sage of the Employ­ee Empow­er­ment Act would open a whole new judi­cial are­na where work­ers could assert their rights against pow­er­ful corporations.

Mar­vit (also a con­tribut­ing writer for Work­ing In These Times) tells In These Times that the new leg­is­la­tion would allow more lawyers in pri­vate prac­tice to take on work­ers’ rights cas­es. Unlike the NLRB, a fed­er­al judge can instruct an employ­er to pay attor­neys’ fees and oth­er legal costs if the court rules in favor of the work­er. ​“This would real­ly ener­gize lawyers in pri­vate prac­tice,” Mar­vit says. ​“They would be will­ing to take cas­es that they won’t take now. The pri­vate labor bar is pret­ty lim­it­ed now, and this would act to revi­tal­ize it.”

Mar­vit also pre­dicts that the law will ener­gize union orga­niz­ing by mak­ing work­ers’ rights suits more promi­nent. ​“As it is now, these cas­es dis­ap­pear into the black hole of the NLRB,” he says. ​“But if cas­es are heard and decid­ed in fed­er­al courts all around the coun­try, they are going to catch the pub­lic eye. They’ll gen­er­ate press atten­tion, and employ­ers will be more respect­ful of work­ers’ labor rights know­ing that they would be exposed in fed­er­al court [if they break the law].”