Page 152 - An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist

CHAPTER 11

DIFFERENT LAWS IN DIFFERENT STATES

Note: This chapter is excerpted from an article, “State labor legislation enacted in 2008” by
John J. Fitzpatrick, Jr., James L. Perine, and Bridget Dutton in Monthly Labor Review Online.
Excerpted with permission from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/
opub/mlr/2009/01/art1full.pdf. Several tables displaying information on State labor laws,
including tables on current and historical minimum-wage rates and a table on State prevail-
ing-wage laws, along with tables concerning child labor issues, are available on the Internet
at the Employment Standards Administration’s Web site, www.dol.gov/esa/programs/whd/
state/ state.htm. 1
I would refer to persons with disabilities as “persons with disabilities,” however, this
excerpt has been presented exactly as it was written, which is why there are references to
“handicapped persons.”
HR credible activists are encouraged to review all state employment laws and recom-
mend those that do not exist in your own state to your employer as policy or to your state
legislators as new law if you find they will improve employee health and well-being as well
as employee and employer accountability towards improved and more functional workplace
systems.
John J. Fitzpatrick, Jr., James L. Perine, and Bridget Dutton report in the Monthly Labor
Review Online, January 2009, on State labor legislation enacted in 2008. The bills that were
introduced and then enacted by the States were concerned with more than 30 categories of
labor legislation that are tracked: agriculture, child labor, State departments of labor,
employee discharge, drug and alcohol testing, equal employment opportunity, employment
agency matters, employee leasing, family issues, garment activity, genetic testing, handi-
capped workers, hours worked, human trafficking, independent contractor issues, inmate
labor, living wages, the minimum wage and tipped employees, miscellaneous or other cat-
egories, offsite work, overtime, plant closing and the displacement or replacement of work-
ers, employers’ preferences regarding employees, prevailing wages, right-to-work matters,
time off from work, unfair labor practices, wages paid, whistleblowers, worker privacy,
workplace security, and workplace violence.
The legislative areas of equal employment opportunity, immigration protections, the
minimum wage, prevailing wages, time off, wages paid, and worker privacy were among the
most active during the individual sessions of the State legislatures in 2008.
Equal employment opportunity. California now requires that all contractors and sub-
contractors engaged in construction provide equal opportunity for employment, without dis-
crimination, under an expanded list of factors. The District of Columbia now requires
employers to provide reasonable daily unpaid break periods and a sanitary location so that
breast-feeding mothers are able to express milk for their children. The District also broad-

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