A bipartisan bill unveiled in the Senate on Monday, the “Slave-Free Business Certification Act,” aims to curtail forced labor overseas by requiring that transnational corporations uncover and disclose its existence in their supply chains. The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), would impose muscular civil damage awards on companies that fail to do so. While the bill does not specifically refer to China, its introduction coincides with the surfacing of allegations that the country relied on forced labor during the Winter Olympics.

Despite its bipartisan nature, the legislation is unlikely to attract the necessary support to overcome a Senate filibuster. After all, Sen. Hawley — an architect of the vision to rebrand the GOP as a populist protector of the proletariat — introduced a similar measure  in 2020, which the powers that be swiftly disappeared into that congressional abyss responsible for swallowing generations of progressive legislative proposals. And even if enacted, there are reasons to suspect the disclosure regime the bill contemplates would not meaningfully curb slave labor overseas.

In Starbucks news, the company continues to employ unlawful tactics in its accelerating efforts to suppress the organizing activity ripping across its cafes nationwide. On Tuesday the company allegedly discharged several members of a recently organized Memphis store’s bargaining committee, claiming they had violated safety and security protocols that one of the employees, a shift supervisor, insists she had never seen enforced — and did not even know existed.

It is striking that the company continues to disregard its employees’ basic Sec. 7 rights even in the face of sustained mainstream media attention. The high-profile nature of these violations demonstrates the incapacity of the existing labor law regime to enable collective bargaining and underscores the urgent need for statutory reform.