The bill
Modern Worker Security Act
HR. 1320, 119th Congress — read as touching Labor Unions.
Sponsored by
Rep. Kiley, Kevin [R-CA-3]
ID: K000401
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 1320, 119th Congress — read as touching Labor Unions.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
24 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Labor and Related Agencies" section, p. 624-626 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 432.
February 19, 2026
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece from the esteemed members of Congress. The Modern Worker Security Act, because nothing says "security" like a bill that's about as transparent as a politician's promise.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose of this bill is to pretend to care about workers while actually serving the interests of corporations and special interest groups. Its objective is to muddy the waters around employee classification, making it easier for companies to exploit workers without providing them with actual benefits or protections.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill's central provision is a cleverly worded attempt to redefine what constitutes an "employee." By excluding benefits from the equation, companies can claim that their workers are not actually employees, thereby avoiding responsibilities like paying taxes, providing healthcare, and offering paid leave. It's a beautiful example of legislative sleight-of-hand.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include:
* Workers who will be further exploited by corporations * Corporations who will benefit from reduced labor costs and increased flexibility to mistreat employees * Lobbyists who will receive fat checks for pushing this bill through Congress * Politicians who will get to pretend they care about workers while actually serving their corporate masters
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The potential impact of this bill is a further erosion of worker rights, more exploitation by corporations, and increased income inequality. It's a classic case of "trickle-down economics," where the benefits trickle down to the wealthy elite, and the costs are borne by the working class.
In medical terms, this bill is like prescribing a placebo to a patient with a terminal illness. It might make them feel better for a little while, but ultimately, it's just a waste of time and resources. The real disease – corporate greed and exploitation – remains untreated.
To all the politicians and lobbyists involved in this farce, I have one question: Do you really think we're that stupid?
Rep. Kiley, Kevin [R-CA-3]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 9 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: M001233
Top Contributors
10
ID: K000398
Top Contributors
10
ID: C001103
Top Contributors
10
ID: O000086
Top Contributors
10
ID: O000177
Top Contributors
10
ID: G000576
Top Contributors
10
ID: B001322
Top Contributors
10
ID: S001196
Top Contributors
10
ID: M001211
Top Contributors
10
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 48 nodes and 39 connections (42 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $185,890
Showing top 19 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 1 helped, 1 harmed.
Section 2(a) prohibits considering benefits in employee classification, which could undermine union efforts to secure benefits through collective bargaining, as employers may avoid classifying workers as employees to evade benefit obligations.
Section 2(a) could benefit for-profit education companies that rely on contingent faculty or gig workers, as they could avoid classifying such workers as employees by providing portable benefits without triggering employee status.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"HR 1320 directly implements Project 2025's policy objective of providing a safe harbor for companies offering benefits to independent workers without triggering employer-employee status, thereby increasing access to pooled benefits like health care and retirement savings for non-traditional workers."
— 591 — Department of Labor and Related Agencies qualify as an independent contractor or employee under the FLSA and NLRA. The Biden Administration is replacing those rules with vague and expansive definitions that would add uncertainty, increase costs, and reduce options for Americans who want to work independently. l NLRB and DOL should return to their 2019 and 2021 independent contractor rules that provided much-needed clarity for workers and employers. l Congress should establish a bright-line test—based on the level of control an individual exercises over his or her work—to determine whether a payee is an employee or an independent contractor, across all relevant laws. This would prevent continued uncertainty as well as provide continuity across federal laws. l Congress should provide a safe harbor from employer-employee status for companies that offer independent workers access to earned benefits. Doing so would increase access among independent contractors to traditional pooled workplace benefits such as health care and retirement savings accounts. Protect Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship (Joint Employer). Millions of busi- nesses across America engage in mutually beneficial affiliation arrangements with other businesses. These arrangements include janitorial services, staffing firms, construction contractors and subcontractors, technology support services, and many other vendor and contracting services. They also include the nearly 775,000 independently owned franchise businesses, which employ 8.2 million workers across the United States. The franchise structure offers a proven business model for individuals who want to own and operate their own small business. An Obama-era regulation changed the definition of a joint employer to make corporate franchi- sors jointly liable for employees of individual franchisee owners, even without the franchisor exercising any direct control over those employees. The Biden Admin- istration is advancing an even more expansive definition of a joint employer that would upend the franchise business model, taking away ownership and income opportunities from small-business entrepreneurs, costing jobs, and raising prices. l DOL and NLRB should return to the long-standing approach to defining joint employers based on direct and immediate control. l Congress should enact the Save Local Business Act, which would codify the long-standing definition that has existed outside the Obama-era and Biden-proposed rules. — 592 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Overtime Pay Threshold. Overtime pay is one of the most challenging aspects of the Fair Labor Standards Act rules. “Nonexempt workers” (e.g., workers whose job duties fall within the law’s power or whose total pay is low enough) must be paid overtime (150 percent of the “regular rate”) for every hour over 40 in a work- week. Overtime requirements may discourage employers from offering certain fringe benefits such as reimbursement for education, childcare, or even free meals because the benefits’ value may be included in the “regular rate” that must be paid at 150 percent for all overtime hours. And because some of these fringe ben- efits may be more valuable (and often come with tax preferences that benefit the worker), the goal should be to set a threshold to ensure lower-income workers have the protections of overtime pay without discouraging employers from offering these benefits. l DOL should maintain an overtime threshold that does not punish businesses in lower-cost regions (e.g., the southeast United States). The Trump-era threshold is high enough to capture most line workers in lower-cost regions. One possibility to consider (likely requiring congressional action) would be to automatically update the thresholds every five years using the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) as an inflation adjustment. This could reduce the likelihood of a future Administration attempting to make significant changes but would also impose more adjustments on businesses as those automatic increases take hold. l Congress should clarify that the “regular rate” for overtime pay is based on the salary paid rather than all benefits provided. This would enable employers to offer additional benefits to employees without fear that those benefits would dramatically increase overtime pay. l Congress should provide flexibility to employers and employees to calculate the overtime period over a longer number of weeks. Specifically, employers and employees should be able to set a two- or four- week period over which to calculate overtime. This would give workers greater flexibility to work more hours in one week and fewer hours in the next and would not require the employer to pay them more for that same total number of hours of work during the entire period. Compliance-Assistance Programming. Labor agencies are often tempted to encourage “over compliance” by companies subject to regulation by pursuing “regulation through enforcement” strategies. Rather than giving regulated enti- ties clear boundaries for what they can and cannot do under the law, the agencies
AI Analysis:
"HR 1320 aligns strongly with Project 2025's goal of protecting flexible work options and worker independence by clarifying employment status to reduce misclassification risks and support independent contractors, particularly through its exclusion of portable benefits from employee determination tests."
— 589 — Department of Labor and Related Agencies Alternative View. While metrics on the state of American families and civil soci- ety are important and useful, monthly statistics would be of little additional value and could end up causing unnecessary confusion and concern. Funding should be oriented towards improving the timeliness of annual family statistics. Sabbath Rest. God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest, and until very recently the Judeo-Christian tradition sought to honor that mandate by moral and legal regulation of work on that day. Moreover, a shared day off makes it possible for families and communities to enjoy time off together, rather than as atomized individuals, and provides a healthier cadence of life for everyone. Unfortunately, that communal day of rest has eroded under the pressures of consumerism and secularism, especially for low-income workers. l Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)9 to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath. That day would default to Sunday, except for employers with a sincere religious observance of a Sabbath at a different time (e.g., Friday sundown to Saturday sundown); the obligation would transfer to that period instead. Houses of worship (to the limited extent they may have FLSA-covered employees) and employers legally required to operate around the clock (such as hospitals and first responders) would be exempt, as would workers otherwise exempt from overtime. Alternative View. While some conservatives believe that the government should encourage certain religious observance by making it more expensive for employers and consumers to not partake in those observances, other conservatives believe that the government’s role is to protect the free exercise of religion by eliminating barriers as opposed to erecting them. Whereas imposing overtime rules on the Sab- bath would lead to higher costs and limited access to goods and services and reduce work available on the Sabbath (while also incentivizing some people—through higher wages—to desire to work on the Sabbath), the proper role of government in helping to enable individuals to practice their religion is to reduce barriers to work options and to fruitful employer and employee relations. The result: ample job options that do not require work on the Sabbath so that individuals in roles that sometimes do require Sabbath work are empowered to negotiate directly with their employer to achieve their desired schedule. Teleworking. COVID made telework ubiquitous, but the law and regulations are still stuck in an era when telework was unique. l Congress should clarify that overtime for telework applies only if the employee exceeds 10 hours of work in a specific day (and the total hours for the week exceed 40). — 590 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l DOL should clarify that an employee given the option to telework need only record time if the quantity of work assigned for that day exceeds the usual amount of work that employee performs so that the employee need not track every time he logs in and out and the employer need not do so either. l DOL should clarify that a home office is not subject to OSHA regulations and that time to set up a home office is not compensable time or eligible for overtime calculations. DOL should likewise clarify that reimbursement for home office expenses is not part of an employee’s regular rate, even if those reimbursements are repetitive (such as for internet or cell phone service). Making Family-Sustaining Work Accessible. Our national work ethic is an American hallmark. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “America is the land of labor.” Much of American life is mediated by Americans coming together to take responsi- bility for solving problems and helping their communities. Our labor agenda must allow community institutions, including small businesses, schools and universities, religious organizations, and worker organizations, to thrive. Protect flexible work options and worker independence (independent contractors). Roughly 60 million Americans across all income groups, ages, education levels, races, and household types participate in independent work, including full-time, part-time, or as a “side hustle.” People choose independent work for a variety of reasons, including flexibility, earnings potential, and the desire to be one’s own boss. An economic analysis of data from one million Uber drivers found that they valued the flexibility of the platform at 40 percent of their earnings, and the average Uber driver would not work at all if he or she had to submit to a taxi-cab schedule. The value of flexibility extends beyond ride-sharing and other platform work; more than half of people who did independent work in 2021 said they cannot work a traditional job because of personal or family circumstances such as their health or caring for a child or family member. Independent workers, or contractors, are also critical to entrepreneurship and small-business growth and success. On average, employers with four or fewer employees rely on seven contractors to run their business. Without the ability to hire those contractors, many small businesses could not compete with larger ones that can afford to employ workers in-house. Businesses and workers currently must navigate many different definitions of who is and who is not an employee (or an independent contractor) based on federal and state employment, compensation, tort, tax, and pension laws. This complexity often leads to confusion, improper classification, and costly litigation. The Trump Administration finalized rules to provide clarity on which workers
AI Analysis:
"HR 1320 focuses on excluding portable benefits from employee status determinations to increase flexibility for non-traditional workers, while the Project 2025 policy centers on sex discrimination enforcement, pro-life workplace accommodations, and restricting abortion-related benefits. The only tangential connection is the general topic of employee benefits, but the bills do not share substantive goals or themes."
— 585 — Department of Labor and Related Agencies l Direct agencies to refocus enforcement of sex discrimination laws. The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of “sex.” PRO-LIFE MEASURES l Promote pro-life workplace accommodations for mothers. Federal law should protect life and promote pro-family policies. Current law, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act,3 provides nondiscrimination protections in the workplace for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)4 requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for women “to the known limitations related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions,” unless “the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the [employer’s] business.” The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) also provides nondiscrimination and accommodation protections in the workplace for certain pregnancy-related disability.5 None of these laws requires an employer provide health insurance benefits for elective abortion. l Pass a law requiring equal (or greater) benefits for pro-life support for mothers and clarifying abortion exclusions. Congress should pass a law requiring that to the extent an employer provides employee benefits for abortion, it must provide equal or greater benefits for pregnancy, childbirth, maternity, and adoption. That law should also clarify that no employer is required to provide any accommodations or benefits for abortion. l Keep anti-life “benefits” out of benefit plans. Some benefits attorneys and pro-choice advocates have argued since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision6 that the longstanding doctrine of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)7 preemption should block individual states’ efforts to prohibit employers from helping employees procure abortions via offering various kinds of coverage under employee-sponsored benefit plans. ERISA should not be allowed to trump states’ ability to protect innocent human life in the womb. Congress and DOL should clarify that ERISA does not preempt states’ power to restrict abortion, surrogacy, or other anti-life “benefits.” RELIGION l Provide robust protections for religious employers. America’s religious diversity means that workplaces include people of many faiths and that many employers are faith-based. Nevertheless, the Biden Administration has been hostile to people of faith, especially those with traditional beliefs
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.