A Labor Day Call for Action From the States
This article is part of TPM Cafe, the House of TPM for the opinion and the analysis of the news.
Last week, the White House organized a meeting of the cabinet of the day before work to celebrate the supposed victories of the administration for American workers. The members of the cabinet took turns to offer sycophanic praise of their boss in a precise demonstration of the dynamics of the workplace that the work movement is fighting to eliminate. It was an appropriate symbol of the approach of this administration towards workers.
The brutal truth is that the Trump administration and the conservatives at the Congress eviscerate workers’ rights in this country. The administration wishes to repeal more than 60 regulations in the workplace, has stripped of collective negotiation rights of more than one million federal workers and widens the Ministry of Labor.
It is a moment that states act – and not timidly or in isolation. Blue states have extraordinary unexploited power, especially if they choose to handle it together. While federal labor protections collapse, states must fill the void, boldly and creatively reflecting on how to build a country that supports workers.
Focusing on states will require a change for national progressive leaders, many of whom have long considered the federal government as the only real step. Some unions, community organizations and activists began to move years ago, turning to states (and also localities). PRO-TRAVEUR legislators responded, transmitting a higher minimum wage, sick leave and paid families, heat protections, guarantees of warehouse workers, non-competition bans and collective negotiations for agricultural workers and public employees.
But the current moment requires an exponential acceleration of the action of the state. In a reference base, states must immediately protect people from declines and maintain the line on current federal protections. States must go further, however, and with a scale and a speed that correspond to the crisis in order to ensure a fair salary, safe workplaces and the right to train and join the unions.
States can coordinate on the transmission of “trigger laws” which are displayed in force if federal standards are repealed, ensuring that Rollbacks in Washington do not leave the workers exposed. They can share data on work offenders and coordinate the application of the law, uniting their forces to bring the multiple cases of prosecution of the company giants who violate workers’ rights. By taking a page of the conservative book, states can adopt laws on the protection of workers and research strategies in the pool, writing and communication. These are not abstract ideas – states are already cooperating in this way in other arenas, energy specific to professional licenses.
Some states are already experiencing. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware signed an agreement to coordinate the application of wage theft. The New York legislature this year has adopted a bill on triggering to protect collective negotiating rights if the national labor relations law is collapsing, with similar bills proposed in California and Massachusetts. The Illinois has promulgated a law locking certain protections in the workplace if the federal standards are weakened. And the DC and Minnesota general prosecutors brought in coordinated prosecution against the Shippt concert company for having allegedly classified workers as independent entrepreneurs, depriving them of rights. But these examples are too few and too silent. To meet the moment, we need a more daring and more visible strategy.
Imagine if a dozen states have simultaneously introduced bills to promulgate heat protections in the workplace, prohibit non-competition agreements, guarantee unemployment benefits to workers in strike or make a crime of wages. The coordination of “falling dates” so that the work bills were introduced into the states both create the headlines and the momentum. Imagine whether two dozen states were following the example of Maryland by demanding labor standards in its investment capital portfolio, ensuring that state pensions are invested in companies with good work practices. Imagine if the attorneys general of all over the country have launched joint investigations into the treatment by Amazon of “Flex” drivers as independent entrepreneurs, tending the company responsible for refusing them the rights of employees.
Imagine if the states created an interstate compact to exploit a shared work -by -work database so that a scofflaw company is prohibited from Oregon public contracts cannot simply turn around and earn contracts in Washington or California. Imagine if a group of states has developed shared shared labor standards required to tend to bid on one of their government contracts or jointly bought goods or services from companies with demonstrated high quality jobs. Imagine if a group of state agencies has shared resources to replace the small crucial federal houses that have been demolished: the states could finance regional mediation centers or research programs on labor security. And imagine a coordinated media strategy to tell a clear story about the states of pooling power to improve people’s lives.
None of this needs the authorization of the federal government. What is necessary is political will, coordination and resolution to treat the power of the state as a real power.
The conservatives know the power which comes from the states acting together. Financial officers of the Republican State recently published joint letters to Wall Street giants requesting the end of taking into account ESG factors in investment decisions. GOP states have organized interstate compacts in an attempt to thwart the affordable care law and develop crossed efforts to harass and intimidate immigrants. Right’s officials understand that states can shape markets, establish national accounts and change federal policy by acting together. Progressives should be just as ambitious to protect workers and strengthen democracy.
Defense of workers and unions is just basically, and it is also an intelligent policy. A new Gallup survey shows the approval of the unions at a record summit of 68%.
Labor party is the perfect time to start. The stakes are enormous. Nearly 170 million workers are in the American workforce. Their security, their salary and their organizational capacity are at stake. The same goes for thousands of dollars in pension funds, billions of state purchase contracts and the health of local economies. Each state dollar spent with an entrepreneur respectful of the law is a dollar that does not feed wages. Each pension fund invested in high -road companies is a leverage against operation.
States have enormous power. When pro-traveler majorities control this power, they must exercise it fully, intentionally and without fear. They must act visibly, collectively and with urgency.
The Labor Day should not be a moment for picnics or barbecues, and that should certainly not be an opportunity to compliment the boss in turn. It should be a rallying cry for upcoming battles. If the federal government does not protect American workers, states must. And, as any student of the union movement knows, the best way to win and exercise power – for workers and also for states – is through collective action.
