Minnesota’s Democratic governor and legislature has enacted one of the vital pro-worker packages of laws that any US state has handed in a long time which incorporates paid household and medical depart, prohibits non-compete clauses, bars employers from holding anti-union captive viewers conferences, and strengthens protections for meatpacking staff and Amazon warehouse staff.
Minnesota’s new laws mandates paid sick days, permits lecturers’ unions to discount over educator-to-student ratios and creates a statewide council to enhance circumstances for nursing residence staff.
These strikes come as labor rights within the US – that are way more restricted than in different industrial nations – have come underneath sustained assault from enterprise teams and plenty of conservative politicians.
Minnesota’s commissioner of labor and business, Nicole Blissenbach, stated the brand new legal guidelines “actually make Minnesota the perfect state for staff and their households”.
The laws’s backers say these pro-worker measures have been made potential by the Democrats’ successful management of Minnesota’s state senate in final November’s midterm elections, giving that get together trifecta management of the home, senate and governor’s workplace. The Democrats now have a 34-to-33 majority within the state senate.
“This laws represents work that has been a very long time coming,” stated Jennifer McEwen, a Democrat who’s chair of the senate labor committee. “These are issues that the majority staff in our peer nations take as a right and revel in.” The US is the one rich industrial nation and one among a handful of countries worldwide that doesn’t assure all staff paid parental depart.
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, a Democrat, signed the Paid Household and Medical Go away Act in addition to an omnibus labor invoice that incorporates a raft of pro-worker provisions. In signing the paid depart laws, Walz stated: “We’re guaranteeing Minnesotans not must make the selection between a paycheck and taking day without work to look after a brand new child or a sick member of the family.”
The regulation permits Minnesota staff to take as much as 12 weeks a yr with partial pay to look after a new child or sick member of the family and likewise permits staff 12 weeks to get well from a severe sickness or well being drawback. The regulation locations a cap of 20 weeks a yr for workers who use each provisions.
Alice Mann, a medical physician and the invoice’s major senate sponsor, stated: “Paid household and medical depart results in so many nice issues: higher maternal well being, higher youngster well being, decreased hospitalization for youngsters, elevated charges of breastfeeding, elevated worker retention, higher participation within the workforce for ladies and decreased gender disparities within the office.”
The invoice handed Minnesota’s senate 34 to 33, with enterprise teams opposing it and each Republican voting in opposition to.
“It is a very long time coming and it’s undoubtedly lengthy overdue,” stated Consultant Ruth Richardson, the invoice’s major sponsor in the home. “The overwhelming majority of Minnesotans don’t have entry to paid household and medical depart. We see who’s neglected – it’s disproportionately ladies and communities of colour and low-income staff who typically can’t afford to take depart.”
Some supporters say that a number of of the newly enacted provisions must be embraced and enacted in different trifecta blue states, similar to Michigan.
“Paid household and medical depart is extraordinarily fashionable, not solely in Minnesota, however nationally as nicely,” Richardson stated. “It’s a kind of points which can be extremely bipartisan. I consider that passing paid household and medical depart is feasible in blue and pink trifecta states and in every part in between.”
The omnibus labor invoice that Walz signed was filled with pro-worker provisions starting from paid sick depart to warehouse security to organising a brand new requirements board for nursing residence staff.
Underneath the brand new laws, non-compete provisions are void and unenforceable. Walz’s workplace stated the regulation, by prohibiting a observe that bars staff from taking jobs with competing employers, offers staff “the liberty to hunt higher working circumstances and better wages with out restrictions”. The ban doesn’t invalidate non-compete clauses entered into earlier than 1 July 2023.
To assist staff handle themselves or a member of the family, the brand new laws additionally permits staff to earn one hour of sick and secure time for each 30 hours labored. The regulation permits accrual of as much as 48 hours of sick time every year.
The regulation requires making a nursing residence workforce requirements board with an equal variety of employee and employer representatives that may set statewide minimal requirements for nursing-home staff, whereas searching for to enhance working circumstances and care.
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It also requires Amazon and other warehouses to tell employees about every work quota they are required to meet, how their work speed is measured and what happens if they fail to meet their quota. The law also allows employees to see work speed data and prohibits employers from retaliating against workers who seek such data.
Under the new legislation, Minnesota employers also cannot require workers to attend anti-union propaganda sessions, often called “captive audience” meetings. The law makes it illegal for an employer to retaliate against a worker for refusing to attend a political or religious meeting, and under the law an anti-union meeting is considered a political meeting.
The state labor department will appoint a meatpacking industry worker-rights coordinator to submit an annual report recommending ways to improve conditions for meat and poultry processing workers. The law also calls for enhanced workplace safety standards for meatpacking plants with 100 or more workers.
Finally, the new legislation tackles wage theft by ensuring a contractor entering into a construction contract assumes liability for any unpaid wages, fringe benefits or damages that a subcontractor owes to its workers.
Bernie Burnham, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, heaped praise on the new laws, calling them “some of the most sweeping pro-labor legislation in state history” and saying they “will improve the lives of workers in every corner of our state”.
Burnham added: “Minnesota has a strong labor movement, and we worked hard to advance our legislative priorities.”
Corporate lobbyists complained that the paid leave law would impose too great a burden on business – employers will have to pay 0.35% of their payroll to finance paid leave, while employees will have to contribute 0.35% of their paychecks.
John Reynolds, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the paid leave “mandate” is “deeply flawed” and “will cost much more than expected and make it harder for small businesses to keep their doors open”.
Mann said the business community was crying wolf. “They’re saying businesses are all going to go out of business and close their doors,” she said. “That hasn’t happened in the 11 other states that have passed paid family and medical leave.”
Mann added: “I am someone who believes that when we lift all boats and make a better standard of living for people, I don’t think corporations actually lose. I think we all gain.”
McEwen said: “Those of us who are more progressive say this is exactly how we win the next election. This is what we do. We do the things we promised we would do, and we hope people will say, ‘Please, more of that.’”
This story has been co-published with the Century Foundation
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