Punching In: Labor Champs Lose, Sick Time Wins on the Ballot

Monday morning musings for workplace watchers.

Labor Champions Ousted| Sick Leave Wins in Red States

Diego Areas Munhoz: Two longtime champions for organized labor in the Senate are on their way out following an election in which Donald Trump retook the White House with millions of votes from the working class.

Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Bob Casey (Pa.) were defeated in tight reelection fights, according to the Associated Press. Both men were some of the most pro-union members of the Senate, representing states that have seen much of their manufacturing base vanish over the decades.

Brown and Casey’s losses came as Trump won their states with help from rank-and-file union voters that previously backed Democrats. Those voters are increasingly moving to the Republican camp, as Trump and his vice president JD Vance have courted the working class with an economically populist rhetoric.

Jimmy Williams Jr., president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said Democrats now need “to get serious about being a party by and for the working class.”

Democrats and organized labor losing two of the most pro-labor lawmakers will leave pro-union legislation and the labor movement with fewer champions shaping policy in the next Congress.

The Rust Belt senators will leave a legacy of defending unions’ interests on Capitol Hill. They have been some of the most ardent congressional supporters of the PRO Act (H.R. 20), unions’ main legislative priority that would overhaul US labor laws to make it easier to unionize.

“It will never be wrong to fight for organized labor,” Brown said in his concession speech following the defeat to Republican car dealer and blockchain entrepreneur Bernie Moreno. “I’m not giving up on my fight for workers.”

Brown, one of the most protectionist members of the upper chamber to favor US workers, led the charge to bail out unions’ multi-employer pensions in the 2021 American Rescue Act. He’s also the lead sponsor of the union-backed bill to reform rail safety laws following the tragic derailment last year in East Palestine, Ohio.

“For his entire career as an elected public servant, Sherrod Brown fought for the dignity of work,” Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga said in a statement to Bloomberg Law. He ran “a grassroots campaign talking about his never-ending policy agenda fighting for the expansion of the middle class.”

Casey was the sponsor of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a law passed in 2022 that guarantees reasonable accommodations in the workplace for expecting mothers. He has also been leading the fight against worker surveillance through artificial intelligence, and is the author of a bill that would end tax breaks for employers that attempt to convince workers not to unionize.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa) (L) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in 2010. Both men are expected to lose their Senate races.

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

Chris Marr: The success of ballot measures mandating paid sick time in Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska bolstered advocates’ claims to bipartisan support for paid leave laws, indicating the policy could spread to more politically red and purple states.

Voters in each of the states approved proposals to require that employers let their workers accrue and use paid sick time, up to 56 hours per year for larger employers or 40 hours for smaller employers.

The mandates are similar to paid sick time laws that were already on the books in 15 states plus Washington, D.C.—most of them enacted by Democratic-majority legislatures. Red states traditionally have been more sympathetic to business groups’ criticisms that the laws impose a costly burden on employers and particularly small businesses.

Voters in three states where Republican candidate Donald Trump won majority support in the presidential election simultaneously approved the paid sick leave ballot questions.

In Nebraska, where the ballot measure solely addressed sick leave without other policy questions attached, the issue won by a 3-to-1 margin, with nearly 75% of voters in support. Alaska and Missouri voters approved their sick leave proposals with 56.6% and 57.6% support, respectively. Those measures also covered gradually increasing their states’ minimum wages to $15 per hour alongside the sick leave mandate, while the Alaska ballot question also called for banning “captive audience” meetings where employers opine about religion, politics, and unions.

“We have long known that paid leave generally and paid sick time specifically are extremely popular” across party lines, said Jared Make, vice president at A Better Balance, which advocates for paid leave and other workplace laws. “It just is such a clear takeaway from all three states that these were comfortable, large, bipartisan majorities.”

That isn’t likely to translate into a flood of Republican-majority legislatures passing paid sick time mandates next year. But it could get the attention of state lawmakers for future proposals and inspire ballot-initiative organizers in other red states, Make said.

In the near term, blue states to watch for paid sick time laws in 2025 include Delaware and Hawaii, he said.

Beyond the sick time proposals, workplace-related ballot measures yielded mixed results, particularly on the issue of tipped minimum wages. Massachusetts voters rejected Ballot Question 5, which would have phased out the state’s tip credit and eventually required employers to pay their tipped workers the full minimum wage. At the same time, Arizona voters rejected a business-backed ballot proposal to expand the state’s tip credit and enshrine it in the state constitution, ensuring future legislatures would have a hard time extending full minimum wage rights to restaurant servers, bartenders, and other service workers who rely on tips.

A California proposal to raise the statewide minimum wage to $18 per hour was losing with only 49.1% as of Monday afternoon, but the state still had a few million ballots left to process.

In Oregon, voters approved Measure 119, requiring cannabis companies to remain neutral toward efforts by their workers to unionize.

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