EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Biden administration adopted a range of key protections for US workers – from safeguards against extreme heat, to broader overtime pay coverage, to new measures protecting organizing rights. With the upcoming change in the federal administration and pending challenges in the courts, state policymakers who want to preserve these important policies should move quickly to enact recent federal worker wins at the state level in order to protect working families against losing these safeguards. This document is not a comprehensive list of all pro-worker policies that states can pursue in the coming years; rather, it summarizes several key measures that states can quickly lock in to preserve recent progress at the federal level. The authors of this document are available to help adapt these and other recommendations to state-specific contexts.
Our recommendations include:
- Ensuring broad overtime coverage by adopting a sufficiently high salary threshold for the “white collar exemption,” as the US Department of Labor (US DOL) did by regulation (currently in litigation);
- Enacting workplace protections against extreme heat, as the US DOL proposed (currently in comment period);
- Curbing non-competes and other employment contract provisions that trap workers in jobs and suppress wages, as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) did by regulation (currently in litigation);
- Within the limits of state authority, taking steps to safeguard workers’ right to organize, as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has done in various ways;
- Fighting labor monopolies and anticompetitive practices in the labor market by adopting certain antitrust enforcement guidelines such as those considering the labor market impact of proposed mergers, as the FTC and US Department of Justice (US DOJ) have done; and
- Creating online tools disclosing employer violations and enforcement data, as the US DOL has done.
The National Employment Law Project is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts research and advocates on issues affecting underpaid and unemployed workers.
The NYU Wagner Labor Initiative serves as a hub of analysis, research, and implementation guidance, as well as idea generation and dissemination, related to the role of government in advancing and protecting workers’ rights, with a special focus on catalyzing increased and more effective action by state and local government.
The Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School is a hub of collaborative research, policy, and strategies to empower working people to build an equitable economy and democracy.
Towards Justice is a nonprofit legal organization that uses litigation and policy advocacy to help people and communities advance worker power and economic equity.
The American Economic Liberties Project is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization that works to combat monopolistic corporations and the systems that entrench their power.
The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank working to counter rising inequality, low wages, and weak benefits for working people.
