The Employee Rights Act makes several significant changes to how labor laws work in the United States. At its core, the bill aims to give individual workers more power and flexibility in their relationship with unions and employers.

One major change requires that union representatives be chosen through secret ballot elections rather than other methods, and it prevents workers without legal immigration status from voting in union elections or being counted as employees for union purposes. The bill also creates new privacy protections, requiring employers to provide worker contact lists to unions during organizing campaigns, while restricting unions from using employee personal information for anything beyond union representation activities. Workers must now give written permission—renewed annually—before unions can spend their dues money on activities unrelated to collective bargaining.

The bill redefines what counts as an "employee" versus an "independent contractor," making it easier for workers to be classified as contractors if they have entrepreneurial freedom and the company doesn't control how they do their work. It also makes it harder for companies to be considered "joint employers" responsible for workers at other companies. Additionally, in states that don't require union membership, workers can now negotiate their own individual deals with employers rather than being bound by union contracts. The bill prohibits unions from including diversity and inclusion requirements in contracts and creates federal penalties for union-related violence during labor disputes.