Congress is divided, but still generally productive [1]. Expanding labor protections simply isn't a political priority. Also, this can be done at the state and local levels.

> Do you know how many worker hours will be exhausted in suboptimal labor conditions waiting for Congress to pass human labor protections?

About as many as there are laid off writers? Ten percent of Americans are in unions [2]. Doubling union membership in a year has less effect than waiting ten years to pass protections into law.

[1] https://datainnovation.org/2023/01/visualizing-congressional...

[2] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf