Not so fast, state-level Republicans say to local minimum wage increases and sick leave laws

Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson) · Monday, January 02, 2017, 3:22 pm

Ohio was just the latest example. In its end-of-year rush, the state’s Republican legislature passed and Gov. John Kasich signed a bill blocking cities from raising the minimum wage locally. But such “pre-emption” laws are increasingly common. Backed by ALEC, these laws make a mockery of the idea of local control, saying that state laws on things like minimum wage and sick leave are the ceiling, not the floor. In Ohio:

The legislation aims to block Cleveland, one of Ohio’s largest and poorest cities, from unilaterally boosting wages for its low-wage workers. According to U.S. census data, 35,000 Clevelanders work full-time for less than $15 an hour, and 50 percent of those workers are black.

After the Cleveland City Council rejected a both a Fight for 15 campaign lobbying effort to pass a $15 minimum wage in August and an attempt to get the issue on the November ballot, labor advocates succeeded in securing a special election for May2017. Voters will decide whether to establish a $12 minimum wage beginning in 2018, with annual one-dollar increases up to $15 over three years and cost-of-living-indexed increases thereafter.

But it’s not just Ohio.

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