New Orleans ballot proposal aims to establish workers’ rights in city law
14th October 2024 · 0 Comments
By Katie Jane Fernelius
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) – Next month, New Orleans voters will decide on whether to enshrine workers’ rights in the city charter.
The proposed charter amendment would add new sections to the New Orleans municipal bill of rights, establishing the right to a fair living wage, comprehensive health care coverage and paid time off, as well as the right to a safe workplace and the right to organize a union.
The citywide proposition, one of two that will appear on the ballot, was the result of a coordinated effort earlier this year between local workers, labor organizers and the city’s Health Department. In March, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously to approve it for the Nov. 5 ballot.
Councilmember Helena Moreno, who sponsored the measure, said then that the proposal would broadcast the city’s pro-worker values at a time when conservative state lawmakers were considering bills aimed at weakening labor unions.
“At this critical time, particularly with what’s happening at the state capitol right now, where there’s been a movement for anti-worker legislation, I think it’s really important for New Orleans to continue to be that strong voice supporting workers,” Moreno said.
Even if voters approve the measure, that doesn’t automatically mean higher pay or better benefits for workers. Like all parts of the city’s bill of rights, the workers’ rights provision would only be enforceable when it corresponds with state and federal laws, such as the National Labor Relations Act – which protects the right of private-sector workers to unionize and collectively bargain – or the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act – which created national workplace safety standards.
Other matters, like wages and benefits, would not be affected. The state of Louisiana has no minimum wage, meaning workers are only guaranteed the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour. And the state legislature has prohibited city and parish governments from requiring private employers to pay higher wages or offering a minimum number of sick days – a so-called “preemption law.”
Still, advocates for the ballot initiative say that adding workers’ rights to the city charter sends a strong message to workers across the city.
“It is essentially a value statement,” said Britain Forsyth, policy director at Step Up Louisiana, which is organizing voters across the city in support of the charter amendment. “It’s a guiding light of, like, ‘This is what we believe as a city that people deserve.’ Workers should be able to look at that and say, ‘We know it doesn’t have the rule of law, but this is how we expect to be treated’.”
Step Up Louisiana first began organizing for the “Workers’ Bill of Rights” in 2021. The move came on the heels of the grassroots group’s work organizing dollar store workers across the city.
The group eventually found a partner in the New Orleans Health Department, which began working on initiatives to promote economic stability following a community health assessment survey in 2019 that found that economic instability was negatively impacting the health of New Orleanians.
“We really wanted to partner with Step Up and others to identify what are some outside-the-box solutions that we might be able to come up with to try to move the needle on this issue,” said Jeanie Donovan, the deputy director of the Health Department.
Donovan was on hand earlier this year when Step Up presented the Workers’ Bill of Rights to the City Council. Workers who attended the meeting spoke about the potential impact of the charter amendment should it pass.
“The Bill of Rights is a chance for us to say that we have a right to live in the city and earn a living wage and to live with dignity,” said Kenny Arbuthnot, a Dollar General store worker and member of Step Up Louisiana. He also highlighted how low pay forced him out of his apartment and onto food stamps.
Latasha Williams, the lead organizer of the campaign with Step Up, said that her experience working as a certified nursing assistant for $8.75 per hour and no benefits inspired her work with the campaign.
“It’s not right for people to work day and night for $7.25 an hour, which has been the minimum wage for the past 15 years, and not be able to get health care or paid time off,” Williams said.
Most economists would agree with Williams that a living wage – a wage that could cover all of a family’s basic needs – is much higher. A living wage calculator put together by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that, in New Orleans, a living wage starts at approximately $20 per hour for one adult with no children and increases to $54 per hour for one adult with three children.
In spite of the state prohibition on local minimum wages, the city of New Orleans has taken steps to raise wages for local workers. In 2015, the council passed the city’s “Living Wage Ordinance,” which set pay minimums for employees of city contractors. Later, the council established a $15 per hour minimum wage for city employees, more than double the federal minimum. The council has also passed an ordinance supporting a $200 per hour minimum pay for musicians, ratified a plan to pay all city employees a minimum of $15 per hour and ensured paid sick, family and medical leave for employees.
But the city has no power to require private employers that don’t do business with the city to abide by the same rules.
“The state has been unwilling to consider raising the minimum wage or lifting preemption,” Donovan said. “So, it’s just extremely frustrating to not be able to respond to the needs of the community as a local government.”
Donovan pointed to a report released by United Way that found that 49 percent of households in southeast Louisiana fell below a threshold to cover the costs of basics. Crucially, more than half of local workers employed as cashiers, personal care aides, cooks, waiters, fast food workers, stockers and order fillers did not earn enough to cover basics.
Williams, for her part, is going door-to-door to try to convince people to vote for the ballot initiative.
“I try to speak to them in layman’s terms,” she said. “I tell them, ‘Do you know the life expectancy of Lakeview is 20 years longer than ours living in poverty?’”
She said references to this local data tend to convince voters she speaks with.
Organizers with Step Up Louisiana hope that the Workers’ Bill of Rights will be the first step in its multi-step push for the city to better support workers. In future months, members of the group hope to work with the Health Department to create a Healthy Workplace designation, which would work to recognize and incentivize businesses that meet the criteria set out in the bill of rights.
“There’s a question of defining those things and what the standard actually is,” Donovan said. She said that the city ordinances ensuring living wages and paid time off for its own workers provide language for those standards. But it’s more complex to figure out how to define standards around comprehensive health insurance coverage and the right to organize a union.
“And then the other piece is, what are the incentives around those standards that would be meaningful to employers in the city, to make them actually want to achieve those standards and then apply for some sort of recognition and incentive from the city?” Donovan said.
In addition to the Healthy Workplace designation, Step Up Louisiana organizers also hope to establish a workers’ commission, where local representatives would be able to discuss workplaces and strategize ways to protect workers’ rights. Similar groups have been established in Durham, North Carolina and Harris County, Texas.
“It’s not anti-business,” Forsyth said. “A big part of that program will also be, how do we work with small businesses to achieve these things in their workplaces?”
This article originally published in the October 14, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
