Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2024

DOI

https://doi.org/10.59015/wlr.QSAD4915

Abstract

This Essay explores recent efforts by worker organizations to transform labor policy in states, as well as countermobilizations by business and conservative groups. It focuses on two particularly promising efforts: the development of worker standards boards and pro-labor changes to state constitutional law. It shows why, as a matter of political economy, such reforms have been achievable at the state and local levels, but not the federal level, and explores the potential of state reforms to build greater economic and political power for working people, notwithstanding limits imposed by federal preemption doctrine. Ultimately, this Essay argues that these recent innovations in state labor law have the potential not only to reshape U.S. labor policy but also to serve as a model for a more democratic approach to administrative governance and constitutional law generally.

Disciplines

Administrative Law | Constitutional Law | Labor and Employment Law | Law

Comments

Copyright 2024 by The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System; Reprinted by permission of the Wisconsin Law Review.

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