Since 2010 Republican-controlled state legislatures – not content just to attack worker rights with state laws – have been pre-empting pro-worker laws at the local level.
The Economic Policy Institute has a new interactive map online tracking these labor rights pre-emption laws nationwide. It’s called Worker Rights Preemption In The US – A map of the campaign to suppress worker rights in the states, available at .
These pre-emptive laws used by GOP legislatures to bar localities from enacting pro-worker agendas include issues like minimum wage, paid leave, fair work schedules, prevailing wages and project labor agreements.
EPI says “With inaction at the federal and state level, working people have increasingly relied on local government to raise labor standards. Now, those protections are being stripped away, by mostly conservative state legislators, through the widespread use of preemption laws.”