The year 2021 is in its final hours. Before we ring in a healthier and more prosperous 2022, here are my top-10 business and policy stories of the year that was: 

1.      Once-in-a-generation tax reform 

Staring down the potential imposition of one of the nation’s highest individual income tax rates, the state Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey worked to ensure that Arizona’s tax environment remained one that attracts job creators and creates economic opportunity. Together they passed a $1.3 billion tax cut package that delivered a 2.5% flat income tax rate. But they didn’t stop there. They also reduced the commercial property tax assessment ratio from 18% to 16% over four years, and they adopted an alternative small business tax filing option. Combine these reforms with the state Supreme Court’s ruling in August that Proposition 208 – the measure that sought to jack-up Arizona’s top income tax rate by nearly 78% – was unconstitutional, and 2021 was a very good year for taxpayers. 

2.      Record jobs recovery

Proving that public policy matters, few states bounced back from the pandemic-induced downturn like Arizona. We in August from the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity that Arizona had recovered 100% of the private sector jobs it had lost since April 2020, the third-fastest recovery in the country. By November the state had recovered more than 100% of all jobs lost, and saw one of the country’s largest month-over-month unemployment , resulting in a 4.7% unemployment rate, the lowest in more than a decade.  

3.      Arizona one of tops in the nation for in-migration

Americans vote with their feet. The world’s freest people can rent a U-Haul and choose anywhere in the country to call home. In 2021, Americans , making the state one of the four largest population gainers and one of the top-3 in total net migration gains. When the Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ and our colleagues in the business community evangelize about the power of free-market policies, this is what we’re talking about. 

4.      Intel’s record investment 

Intel in March announced its plans to construct two new fabs at its Chandler Ocotillo facility, representing a $20 billion investment, the largest in state history, which will result in 15,000 local long-term jobs. Not only is the investment huge, but it solidifies Arizona’s place as the hub for the jobs that will define the next decade and beyond. Forbes rightly referred to Arizona as “.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

5.      Next generation manufacturing 

That Intel investment is just one example of the way Arizona’s reputation for next-generation manufacturing grew in 2021. The stories were frequent and plentiful. ElectraMeccanica that its 235,000-square-foot manufacturing facility will be rolling by next summer and that its Solo electric vehicle is undergoing validation . KORE Power that it’s bringing a first-of-its kind lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility to Buckeye. Lucid Motors the official start of production of their vehicles at the company’s Casa Grande facility, and the Lucid Air model Motor Trend’s Car of the Year Award. Nikola its first Tre battery-electric vehicle (BEV) pilot truck fresh from its Coolidge plant. These are the types of headlines that make other states green with envy and they’re the jobs that will power the economy for years to come. 

6.      Liability protections

The Legislature and Gov. Ducey passed and signed into law , legislation that establishes commonsense liability protections for health care providers, businesses, schools and universities, non-profits, and government entities that are taking responsible steps to prevent the spread of the virus. The bill was good news for businesses getting back to some semblance of normalcy without having to worry about the threat of abusive litigation. 

7.      Nationally recognized vaccine rollout, new therapeutic innovations

It was a year of vaccines and therapeutic innovations as Arizona did its part to take down the pandemic. The White House Arizona’s fantastic mass vaccination site at State Farm Stadium, and the Ducey administration and county health departments rolled out additional sites across the state, ensuring any Arizonan who wanted the lifesaving jab could get it. Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ members were often behind the scenes, mobilizing their workforces to volunteer at the sites and keep them humming with remarkable efficiency. And credit to our nation’s pharmaceutical innovators, who not only developed the vaccines in record time, but who have also game-changing antiviral pills that will keep Covid-positive cases out of the hospital. These companies and our nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals will make 2022 a brighter one. They deserve our sincere thanks. 

8.      Regulatory modernization

More red tape got cut in 2021 to meet the moment we’re living in. Ensuring we can get with our takeout orders might not seem like a big policy innovation, but the bipartisan effort demonstrated Arizona policymakers’ willingness to ensure that our regulatory environment makes sense in the face of changing times. The Legislature and governor also the disincentive for businesses to appeal negative state agency decisions by making the attorney fee recovery statute for non-tax administrative action consistent with regular tax appeals, and they raised the aggregate cap on reimbursed fees. I’ll admit it’s the kind of in-the-weeds regulatory reform that might not have been splashed on the frontpage, but it makes Arizona a better state to do business.  

9.      Build Back Better bites the dust

The massive domestic spending bill that President Joe Biden made a centerpiece of his 2021 domestic agenda fizzled out before the end of the year, which was good news for job creators and anyone worried about Jimmy-Carter-level inflation rates. But it wasn’t just the price tag of the tax increases and transfer payments – it was the rotten policy, with measures ranging from environmental regulations to giveaways to Big Labor and trial lawyers, to interference in drug pricing, all of which resulted in a bill so big and so bad that it deserved to collapse under its own weight. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has gotten a lot of ink for his refusal to go along with the White House and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s artificial timeline for the bill’s passage, but Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema deserves credit for her work to make a bad bill a little better. We need her and Sen. Mark Kelly to keep up the fight in 2022 if there’s an attempt to resuscitate this legislation.  

10.   PRO Act collapses

Arizona’s Sinema and Kelly stepped up big time in their refusal to sign on as co-sponsors to the Protecting the Right to Organize, or PRO Act, in 2021. The bill contained a litany of items on organized labor’s wish list, all of which would have driven a wedge between job creators and employees and sparked litigation and headaches. After a party-line vote in the House, things looked bleak, but Sens. Sinema and Kelly haven’t gone along, depriving Sen. Schumer of the 50 co-sponsors he says he needs to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. If the filibuster stays in place, the bill faces a rough road, but that’s a big “if,” and Schumer would love nothing more than an excuse to dump the filibuster and ram through the PRO Act as a standalone bill or stick it into Build Back Better. No matter the strategy, our senators have the power to stop it.  

That’s just a glimpse into the business and policy wins that defined a year with the potential for dozens more, on topics ranging from infrastructure to the job market to cryptocurrency and NFTs (to name a few). We at the Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ are looking forward to 2022, which we’re confident will be another year of job creators, lawmakers of both parties, and the governor working together for a more economically vibrant and resilient Arizona. Happy New Year.  

Danny Seiden is president and CEO of the Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce & Industry

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The following column originally .

There is a concerted effort underway in Washington to undermine and overturn the very policies that have made states like ours economic leaders.

One of our states, Texas, does not have an income tax, while Arizona just a low flat income tax. Our states’ regulatory burdens are light, education innovation is encouraged, and parents have choices where they send their kids to school. We are also right-to-work states, meaning labor union membership is strictly voluntary.

That our states embrace policies like these makes it no coincidence that we regularly show up on lists of the country’s fastest-growing states or states that offer the best business environments.

But some officials on Capitol Hill and within the Biden administration have spent the past several months attempting to put handcuffs on our pro-growth strategy.

When the American Rescue Plan Act passed in March, Treasury officials told states they better not think about cutting taxes. The administration later that states could extend relief to their taxpayers under certain circumstances, which were laid out in a Treasury that makes its point in a brisk 150 pages.

Congress got in on the micromanagement act and added a dose of fealty to anti-school-choice special interests with buried in an appropriations bill that says public charter schools shouldn’t be able to contract with private sector entities like school lunch providers or back-office help if they want to maintain access to federal funds. Some schools might be forced to shut down and their students would be left in the lurch, but maybe that’s the point. Not surprisingly, the bill says nothing about educational quality or student performance.

Congress and the administration come together in bigfooting the states on the Protecting the Right to Organize, or , which would eliminate voluntary union membership and states’ right to work laws. The bill has and Senate Majority Leader (D-N.Y.) says he’ll bring his chamber’s version of the bill to a vote if he can convince a few more Democratic holdouts to come on board.

Not only does the PRO Act crowbar union-backed labor policy into states’ workplace laws, but it eviscerates labor mobility and worker choice.

Want to be an independent contractor? Not so fast, says the PRO Act, which attempts to bring California’s unpopular AB 5 law — which voters there amended last November after app-based gig workers protested — to the rest of the country, making it much harder to be an independent contractor. Fewer independent contractors means more potential union members.

These heavy-handed top-down approaches to lawmaking not only turn federalism on its ear, but they also create a drag on the post-pandemic economic recovery at the very moment we should be incentivizing creative thinking to spark job growth. Instead, Congress and the administration have embraced the tedious sort of policies that have caused millions of Americans to pull up stakes and move to more welcoming economic climates like ours.

Arizona and Texas have proven that if given the opportunity to innovate in our laboratories of democracy that we can help cultivate environments that encourage and accelerate job growth. If you’re looking for examples on how to bounce back after more than a year of pandemic-induced disruptions, look to our states.

Our states are moving quickly. We don’t expect that Washington will take a lesson from us, but it shouldn’t force us to adopt policies that will only slow us down.

Danny Seiden is the president and CEO of the Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce & Industry. Glenn Hamer is the president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business.

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Leaders of Arizona’s business community on Monday urged the U.S. Senate not to adopt the Protecting the Right to Organize, or PRO Act, legislation they say would harm job creation efforts.

At a press conference at the offices of the Arizona chapter of the Associated General Contractors, the business group leaders said the bill would eviscerate Arizona’s right-to-work law, which makes union membership voluntary and not a condition of employment.

“The only thing hotter than the temperature is Arizona’s economy,” said Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce and Industry President and CEO Danny Seiden. “Why would we want to put that all at risk?”

Michelle Ahlmer, executive director of the Arizona Retailers Association, said her industry would be unable to continue recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic if the PRO Act passes.

“Before the pandemic, our industry had record highs in profits, wage growth, and employment. As we climb out from the last 18 months, we need every tool to get back on our feet,” Ahlmer said. “We simply cannot add to the challenging economic environment by passing the PRO Act. The PRO Act is a harmful bill that would essentially give unions free rein to wreak havoc on local businesses.”

National Federation of Independent Businesses Arizona state director Chad Heinrich said the PRO Act’s independent contractor status test would hurt many Arizona small businesses, whose employees prefer the flexibility of working as independent contractors. 

“California adopted a strict three-part test to classify independent contractor status. This has been a significant problem for California small businesses,” Heinrich said. “When California first adopted this test, they had to immediately carve out dozens of exceptions because it was unworkable. The PRO Act has no exceptions.”

The bill, a priority of the organized labor movement and progressive activists, has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives on a party-line vote and President Joe Biden has supported the legislation. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’ll bring the bill to a vote in his chamber if it can secure 50 cosponsors. Arizona senators Kyrsten Sinema, D, and Mark Kelly, D, so far have refused to sign-on to the legislation.

“We’d like to thank Sens. Sinema and Kelly for being willing to listen to all sides on this issue,” Associated General Contractors Arizona chapter President David Martin said. “We’re grateful they’re taking a pragmatic approach to this very complicated matter that involves many employers and employees in Arizona.”

Polling data indicates the bill does not have broad support among the American public. 

A recent found that 63% of Arizona voters did not want unions to have more influence, and 74 % of them were concerned about losing right-to-work protections and forcing workers to pay union dues to obtain a job.

Right-to-work, which allows for employees to work without being obligated to join a union, has been protected by Arizona’s constitution since 1946. 

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 5.3 percent of Arizona workers are members of unions, less than half the national average.

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A bill is currently being discussed in the Senate that would not only impose dangerous alterations to over 85 years of labor law, but is also a series of reckless policies that would favor unions at the expense of employers and the economy. 

The proposal in question is the (S. 420/H.R. 842). Proponents of the PRO Act claim it would “,” but a closer look at the proposed legislation illustrates it only ensnares employers in unrelated labor disputes and would severely damage Arizona workplaces and competitiveness.

Right-to-Work Elimination

A bipartisan research firm, recently conducted , and the results reveal serious concerns Americans have about the PRO Act.

Among the litany of bad ideas within this proposed legislation would be the effective repeal of right-to-work protections that currently exist in 28 states, including Arizona.These right-to-work laws provide assurances to employees that they do not have to pay labor union dues in order to keep their job. According to the poll, this specific issue alone was a serious concern for. Moreover,, “these results did not vary much based on party either: 68 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and 74 percent of Republicans said they had concerns over repealing right-to-work laws.”

Currently, employees can elect not to join a labor union at their workplace — it is entirely their choice. The PRO Act would change that and allow unions to disregard established state law and collect dues from employees who have decided to opt out of a union. Additionally, in a state without right-to-work laws, an employer would more than likely be required by the labor contract to terminate an employee who refuses to pay union dues. This is why more and more states have adopted right-to-work laws.

“If the PRO Act were to pass, it would do tremendous damage to Arizona’s workplaces and its overall competitiveness,” said David Martin, President of the Arizona chapter of the Associated General Contractors in a Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ article last month. “We’re so fortunate to have a right-to-work law in Arizona that ensures that the decision whether to join a labor union is left up to the employee. Our workplaces are largely free of hostility and intimidation. We want to keep it that way.”

Revival of the card check, eliminating secret ballots

The PRO Act will also undermine the use of secret ballot elections. Instead, allowing labor unions to use a “card check” where workers would sign a card to authorize a union rather than privately voting a ballot. These secret ballot elections, which are overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, provide protections to workers from coercion and/or intimidation by either the labor union or the employer.

According to the poll, this specific issue alone was a serious concern for. Moreover,, “these results did not vary much based on party either: 68 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and 74 percent of Republicans said they had concerns over repealing right-to-work laws.”

The potential for union organizers to abuse this information in order to pressure workers is concerning. Workers could become subject to coercion and intimidation within their workplace, home, and out with their family. It’s not clear how this “levels the playing field and brings more fairness to working Americans”.

Economic Impact

Some might not oppose this proposed act at first glance, but many American workers would reconsider if they knew long term it would hurt their jobs and their wallet.

Unions’ demands for mandated wage packages and stringent staffing rules would effectively kneecap the competitiveness of American companies.

This fact is a large reason unionization rates in the country have., “The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.3 million in 2020, was down by 321,000, or 2.2 percent, from 2019.”

If the PRO Act really were pro-worker, more Americans might support it. But the recent polling data is revealing. American workers don’t want dollars from their paychecks diverted to labor unions, and they don’t want to stifle job growth, especially in a post-pandemic economy. Let’s hope Arizona Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly and the rest of the Senate are paying attention. For more information on the PRO Act click .

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In partnership with the country’s leading business advocacy organization, business groups across Arizona have made defeat of the anti-employer PRO Act one of their top priorities for the remainder of the year.

The U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce is working with its partner organizations in Arizona to express their gratitude that the state’s two senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, continue not to support the legislation. 

Sinema and Kelly are two of only three Democratic senators who have not agreed to cosponsor the bill. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (New York) says he will bring the bill to a vote once it secures 50 cosponsors, which makes Sinema and Kelly’s position on the bill even more important.

The House version of the PRO Act passed along mostly party lines in March. All of Arizona’s Democratic congressional delegation members voted in favor of the bill. 

If the PRO Act were to pass, it would overturn decades of labor law, disrupting workplaces, weaking protections for employees and employers, and lead to increased litigation according to the U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­. 

At a special established by the group, there are tools for Arizonans to contact their senators and applaud their refusal not to join as bill cosponsors.

One of the most concerning provisions of the PRO Act is its elimination of states’ right-to-work laws, which protect workers from being fired if they choose not to join a labor union. Arizona is a right-to-work state. 

“If the PRO Act were to pass, it would do tremendous damage to Arizona’s workplaces and its overall competitiveness,” said David Martin, president of the Arizona chapter of the Associated General Contractors. “We’re so fortunate to have a right-to-work law in Arizona that ensures that the decision whether to join a labor union is left up to the employee. Our workplaces are largely free of hostility and intimidation. We want to keep it that way.”

The bill also undermines the use of secret ballots in union organizing elections, allowing labor unions to use instead so-called “card check,” whereby workers sign cards to authorize a union rather than voting a ballot privately.

Among the litany of anti-employer elements, the PRO Act would also allow “secondary boycotts,” where one company is pressured not to do business with another company that is the subject of a labor action. Currently outlawed, this secondary activity would result in strikes and pickets against businesses with no direct role in a labor dispute, such as suppliers and vendors and even professional service firms like banks and accountants.

“If the PRO Act becomes law, business owners in Arizona could wake up on any given day to find picket lines in front of their business even though the dispute has nothing to do with them,” Tucson Metro Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ President and CEO Amber Smith and U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley in a column last month. 

Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­s of commerce and other business groups across Arizona are increasing their communications with Sinema and Kelly. More than 50 business groups and chambers of commerce in April to the two senators urging them not to join the bill.

“We thank Senators Sinema and Kelly for not lending their support to this extremely damaging bill,” Martin said. “The Arizona economy is on much more solid footing today than it was a year ago and we’re poised for tremendous growth. Passage of the PRO Act would be a major step back and would do real harm to Arizona’s job creators and our economy.”

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Legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would overturn Arizona’s right-to-work law that has been in place for 75 years, stirring alarm among business groups here and in other states with similar laws.

Advocacy groups like the U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce are calling on the Senate to reject the anti-jobs proposal, saying it would hurt employees, employers, independent contractors and freelancers.  

“The PRO Act would, for all practical purposes, eviscerate Arizona’s right-to-work law, which would mean that workers in the state who happen to be in a union work setting would have to pay dues or they would be at risk of losing their jobs, said Glenn Spencer, senior vice president of the Employment Policy Division at the in Washington, D.C., the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses.

“Their employers may well be forced to terminate them if they don’t wish to pay dues in that setting,” said Spencer, who spoke with Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ (CBN) about the implications of the proposed law.

Sweeping proposal would set dangerous precedent 

The PRO Act, which stands for , would enact dozens of sweeping changes to current labor law in favor of unionization. Labor unions like the AFL-CIO are backing the measure. President Joe Biden has promised to sign the bill if it gets to his desk. Meanwhile, Arizona’s two senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, are current holdouts preventing the bill from moving forward. But the pressure is on. 

Of concern to businesses are a long list of new provisions, from requirements limiting freelancers’ ability to have flexibility over their own hours to allowing union organizers to engage in coercive tactics long held to be illegal.

Simply put, the proposed law would strip employees’ right to decide if they want to be in a union, disrupt the thriving gig economy, and hurt employers’ bottom line, Spencer said. 

Protect or harm workers’ rights?

The U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ and hundreds of business advocacy groups are calling on senators to say “no” to the proposal. In Arizona, , including the Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce & Industry, are joining the U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ in opposition. 

Proponents of the PRO Act contend the measure would restore fairness to the economy by strengthening the federal laws that protect workers’ right to join a union. But what they fail to mention is the number of measures that could have damaging consequences for employees and job creators, Spencer said. 

Here are some of the key reasons business groups oppose the measure: 

Elimination of right-to-work laws

Currently, Arizona and 26 other states have right-to-work laws, which give workers the choice of whether to join a union. States without right-to-work laws require employees to pay union dues and fees as a requirement for employment. 

“The bill represents a pretty dramatic intrusion into state laws,” Spencer said. “States since 1947 have been authorized to pass right-to-work statutes. Courts have ruled on those statutes, and this bill would essentially wipe all that out without any action by the state legislature.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

The Act would allow coercive tactics long held to be unlawful 

Another concerning provision in the PRO Act would be the ability for workers of a company to picket companies that their employer conducts business with, called “secondary boycotts,” Spencer said.

“Most people aren’t aware of that concept and that’s for a very good reason because secondary boycotts and pickets have been illegal since 1947. For more than 70 years it’s been against the law to engage in that kind of activity,” he said. “Congress outlawed it specifically because it was so disruptive to the free flow of commerce.”

Under current law, union organizers can talk to an employer and employees where they are trying to unionize. If secondary boycotts are allowed under the PRO Act, union organizers could target any businesses the company does business with, occupying their parking lots and disturbing their customers.

“So you can see how widely disruptive a labor dispute at a single company could become. A whole range of neutral third parties that have nothing to do with a labor dispute suddenly get drawn into it,” Spencer said. “Just because you’re providing services as a third party, suddenly that could make you the subject of labor protests and pickets around something you really have no part of.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

Strips independent contractors of their classification 

Another concerning aspect of the PRO Act is the redefining of independent contractors and freelancers similar to the controversial that was passed in California in 2019. 

Under AB 5, when a hiring entity claims that the person it hired is an independent contractor, the law requires the application of the “ABC test” to determine if workers are employees or independent contractors. For many independent contractors, the PRO Act would mean they would be considered employees for purposes of federal labor law, giving them the right to unionize. 

In California, the penalties for businesses that “wrongly classify an employee as an independent contractor” are civil penalties of $10,000 for a first violation, $30,000 for “repeat or willful” violations, and 1 percent of net profits if “widespread.”

Given the penalties, it could severely limit ’ ability to get hired, forcing them out of business.

Independent contractors could end up in union without knowing it 

Independent contractors tend to be dispersed, so if a union patches together a bargaining unit of independent contractors, it typically has to occur by mail, Spencer said. 

“What we’ve seen in other contexts like this is that a lot of these workers don’t even realize there’s any kind of union campaign going on and these campaigns are won by a majority of those who actually vote,” he said. “So if you have a hundred independent contract workers, if only 10 voted, six of them would constitute a majority of voters and that would be enough to impose a union on all 100.

“So you’d wake up one morning and suddenly discover you’re a member of a union and you have to pay union dues because right to work is gone.” he said. 

Economic growth would likely be hampered 

Research by the U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ shows that right-to-work states tend to have higher rates of economic growth, higher rates of job creation and lower rates of unemployment, Spencer said. 

“So there’s certainly a personal cost to workers, but there’s a larger economic cost to the states as well,” he said.  

Sinema and Kelly key players in the debate 

For the most part, Democrats are leading the charge on the PRO Act. There are currently 47 Democrats co-sponsoring the bill in the Senate. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said he will bring the bill to the floor if he can get 50 co-sponsors.

So far, Arizona’s two Democrat senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly have not co-sponsored the bill. One reason given for their reluctance is the lack of bipartisan support for the bill. They also have a large cadre of constituents who support the state’s right-to-work status.

“Senators Sinema and Kelly have not co-sponsored this bill. That’s a good thing. People in Arizona should thank them for standing up for workers and right-to-work and employers,” Spencer said. 

Large opposition from business community 

Business leaders and advocacy organizations across the U.S. are sending letters to Congress, calling for an end to the PRO Act, including the , composed of hundreds of organizations representing millions of businesses that employ tens of millions of workers nationwide in nearly every industry.

Arizona chambers calling on Congress to vote “no” 

In Arizona, at least 20 chambers of commerce oppose the measure:

• Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce & Industry 
• Buckeye Valley Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Chandler Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Carefree Cave Creek Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Coolidge Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Glendale Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Greater Phoenix Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­
• Greater Flagstaff Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Green Valley Sahuarita Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Lake Havasu Area Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Marana Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Nogales-Santa Cruz County Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Peoria Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Prescott Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Prescott Valley Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Queen Creek Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Southwest Valley Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• Surprise Regional Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce
• West Valley Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce Alliance 
• Wickenburg Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce

To read more about why business and industry oppose the bill, visit:.

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Arizona U.S. Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly updated the business community on legislation important to industry and commerce Wednesday during the Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce & Industry’s annual 2021 Update from Capitol Hill.

The two senators detailed measures in the recent federal relief package that will benefit businesses in Arizona and priorities for the rest of 2021. They also fielded questions about top business concerns including corporate tax rates, preservation of the filibuster, and the feared Pro Act, which has been labeled “the worst bill in Congress” by many in the business community.  

Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ in Washington, D.C., also offered an insider view into the goings on in the nation’s capital as far as business is concerned. More than 500 attended the virtual event, which was sponsored by Salt River Project and the Arizona Indian Gaming Association. 

How businesses are benefiting from recent federal relief bill 

Senator Sinema (D) talked about measures she has successfully supported and lobbied for in the federal relief packages including the most recent $1.9 trillion .

Sinema emphasized her record of working across the aisle despite criticism from party loyalists at times. For her, ensuring that Arizona employers and employees weather the pandemic is her first priority, not party politics, she said.

“Over the past year, employers have had to make tough choices, adapt, and contend with bureaucratic obstacles that delayed relief,” Sinema said. “That’s why as a member of the Senate bipartisan group on Covid relief, I listened closely to Arizona leaders and worked to ensure that the new relief law addresses Arizona’s urgent needs.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

Among the measures Sinema helped to pass are:

Restaurant relief fund: Sinema and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., introduced and helped pass a restaurant relief fund of $28.6 billion to help small and mid-sized restaurants, bars, caterers, food trucks, breweries and other food service providers in need of assistance with rent and operational expenses. It provides grants of up to $10 million per entity with a maximum of $5 million per location based on the difference between 2020 and 2019 revenue. 

Save our Stages Act This legislation created a $15 million fund to provide relief to the entertainment industry like nightclubs, theaters and concert halls. 

Employee Retention Tax Credit This is a refundable against certain employment taxes equal to 50 percent of the qualified wages an eligible employer paid to employees after March 12, 2020, and before January 1, 2021. Eligible employers can get immediate access to the credit by reducing employment tax deposits they are otherwise required to make. Also, if the employer’s employment tax deposits are not sufficient to cover the credit, the employer may get an advance payment from the IRS.

CHIPS for America Act Another bipartisan effort led by Sinema resulted in the CHIPS Act being adopted in December. The CHIPS Act — Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors — established federal grants to enable advanced research and development, secure the supply chain and ensure long-term national security and economic competitiveness. 

Soon after Congress passed the act, announced a $20 billion expansion of its manufacturing operation with two new factories in Arizona, Sinema said. The project is expected to create more than 3,000 permanent, high-wage jobs and more than 3,000 construction jobs, beginning this year. 

Relief for border communities The measure provides $110 million to help border cities and towns overwhelmed trying to provide humanitarian aid to asylum seekers flooding across the border. 

Looking ahead: immigration, infrastructure, broadband

Sen. Kelly, who stepped into public office in December, said he spent his first five months doing a “lot of listening” to ascertain what is the most effective use of federal dollars in Arizona. Protecting public health while encouraging economic development are top priorities. 

“There’s a lot of work ahead to beat this virus and rebuild our economy. That’s been my focus,” said Kelly, who also spoke about his commitment to working in a bipartisan manner. 

In the coming months, Kelly said he is focused on a number of packages with business in mind including:

Infrastructure Congress has failed to pass a major infrastructure bill in the past but there could be enough momentum to get it done this year. The bill would include funding for not only roads and bridges but water and wastewater facilities and the expansion of broadband to shrink the digital divide between the haves and the have nots.

Immigration reform Another top priority is to finally pass immigration reform to secure a future workforce for the state and provide a pathway to citizenship for longtime immigrant employees as well as Dreamers, young adults who were brought here as children by their undcoumented relatives.

Upgrades to ports of entry Keeping the border secure and expanding trade in Arizona will require investing in new technology and infrastructure at ports of entry, another key goal, Kelly said.

“The federal government is failing our state when it comes to border security,” Kelly said. “We need a secure, orderly and safe process at the border.”

Business worries: corporate taxes, filibuster, the PRO Act 

U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ executive Bradley rounded out the event by touching on a number of concerns to businesses. 

One is the growing national debt from three massive Covid relief packages, topping $5 trillion. In order to accomplish an infrastructure package and other important projects, federal relief in the last round should have been more focused and targeted to real need, he said.

“When you think of last spring, we knew Congress had to provide broad based support. But what we’ve seen is not every family, every industry and every state needs relief,” Bradley said. 

Bradley also talked about President Biden’s proposal to raise the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28 percent. He does not believe the measure has enough support to succeed, but if it does, it will risk the progress Arizona and the nation have made in becoming more globally competitive, he said. 

Changing the corporate tax rate would likely reverse the successes that followed passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, he said. Prior to the Act, the nation had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. American companies were looking abroad for growth and new investment. 

“Tax changes would give a leg up for competitors abroad. Why would we want to do that?” he said.

When asked about efforts by many Democrats in Congress to remove the filibuster, Bradley said that would likely hurt the nation, too. With strong division between the right and the left, the filibuster ensures that that congressional members have to work to find common ground, he said.

Another concern is the proposed PRO Act of 2021, which also does not appear to have strong support in Congress, Bradley said. The Act would force employees to pay union dues regardless of whether they support a union, threaten private ballots in union elections, and strip workers of their independent contractor classification.

It’s an issue that is extremely worrisome to Arizona businesses, said Garrick Taylor, interim president and CEO of the Arizona Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­. 

“This proposal is a litany of almost every failed idea from the past three decades of labor policy,” Taylor said. “It would undermine workers rights, most likely trap employers in a maze of labor disputes and force individuals to pay union dues regardless of their wishes.”

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Right-to-work laws first came about in response to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA),  which authorized labor unions to act as workers’ “exclusive bargaining representatives.” This meant individuals were not able to negotiate their contracts separately, even if they didn’t belong to the union. 

After the passage of the NLRA, unions began negotiating contracts that made paying union dues a condition of a worker’s employment contract. States that enacted right-to-work  statutes to counter union power saw this as ensuring workers an important right: freedom to choose. 

Recently right-to-work laws have been under attack through various bills proposed at a state and federal level. 

One such bill introduced in the U.S. House is the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. It was originally proposed in 2019 and would have effectively abolished all state Right to Work laws. Many free market organizations, including the Goldwater Institute, wrote a letter openly opposing the bill saying that, “invalidating these laws would hurt workers and employers, but would provide more dues to unions.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č; 

The bill has returned in 2021 with a number of changes that erode states’ right-to-work laws.

Glenn Spencer, the U.S. Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»­ of Commerce senior vice president of the Employment Policy Division the bill “strips workers of their privacy, threatens private ballots, imposes California’s disastrous independent contractor test, jeopardizes employers’ right to free speech, and threatens the loss of a job should workers choose not to pay union dues.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

“While claiming to be pro-worker, we firmly believe today’s legislation is a grab-bag of harmful policies that would deprive millions of workers of their privacy and fundamentally alter our nation’s system of labor relations,” he said.

Missouri’s union blues

Protection against forced union membership is offered in 28 out of the 50 states in the form of right-to-work legislation. 

States like Missouri have had ongoing battles in their legislature as they attempt to provide the opportunity for workers to choose whether to join a union membership in different work environments such as construction. 

This issue was slated to be on the Missouri ballot in 2020. The state’s Republican Party submitted the ballot initiative in December 2018. In February of 2019, the secretary of state approved the initiative for signature gathering. However, petitioners did not submit signatures by the deadline. 

Economic competitiveness

Being a right-to-work state benefits an economy through more outside investment, lower cost of living, and higher economic productivity. 

According to Jeffrey Eisenach of NERA Economic Consulting, the economic benefits experienced by the

• Between 2001 and 2016 private sector employment growth of 27 percent, which was 12 percent higher than non-RTW;
• An annual unemployment rate that was 0.4 percentage points lower than non-RTW states. In terms of jobs, if non-RTW states had the same employment rate, 249,000 more people would be employment;
• Output in RTW states grew 38 percent from 2001 to 2016, whereas non-RTW reached 29 percent growth output;
• Another staple of economic productivity, real manufacturing output rose by over 30 percent in RTW states from 2001 to 2016, compared with 21 percent in non-RTW states.

The AFL-CIO, a federation of 55 American unions, right to work laws as a way to lower workers’ wages. However, while the wage averages in , the average cost of living in right-to-work states is below the national average as well. 

Arizona’s experience

In the state of Arizona, organized labor only accounted of wage and salary workers in 2019. Since 1989, when the data for states became widely available, Arizona’s union membership rates have stayed below the national average. 

As of November of 1946, the Arizona Constitution has had a provision for the state to be a right-to-work state. 

The constitutional amendment reads, “No person shall be denied the opportunity to obtain or retain employment because of non-membership in a labor organization, nor shall the State or any subdivision thereof, or any corporation, individual or association of any kind enter into any agreement, written or oral, which excludes any person from employment or continuation of employment because of non-membership in a labor organization.”&˛Ô˛ú˛ő±č;

Proposition 4 was an initiated constitutional amendment, which officially prohibited the requirement of labor organization membership for a person to be employed. The amendment passed in the 1946 general election by 55 percent. 

State lawmakers’ support for right-to-work policy derives from the economic benefits that are associated with these laws, including more attraction of outside investment. 

, an economics professor at the University of Kentucky said, “It sends a signal to businesses that, as a state, we are trying to make ourselves more open and friendly and [as] flexible as possible for businesses that want to locate here.”

The status of Arizona’s right to work could soon be up for debate again. With the defeat of pro-right-to-work Senator Martha McSally, there is a chance that Congress has the majority needed to pass the aforementioned PRO Act. 

As the National Right to Work Committee Vice President, Mary King , “Indeed, the Senate could potentially be Right to Work’s last firewall against not just the PRO Act, but an entire host of Big Labor power grabs.”

Among the PRO Act’s 209 cosponsors are Arizona Representatives Ruben Gallego, Raul Grijalva, Ann Kirkpatrick, Tom O’Halleran and Greg Stanton.

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