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.
More than 20 mostly red states have passed preemption laws banning local minimum-wage increases, according to NELP. [...]
Outgoing North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory’s infamous “bathroom bill,” which curbed equal-protection advances for gay and transgender people, also included a provision that prohibited cities and counties from mandating higher minimum wages for private employers.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker launched the first major Republican preemption effort in 2011 when he signed legislation that prevented localities from requiring mandatory paid sick time. The move retroactively voided a paid-sick-days ballot measure that Milwaukee voters had overwhelmingly approved in 2008.
Republican state legislatures have passed similar laws in Missouri, Michigan, Alabama, and more. With Congress in Republican hands, states and cities are the only path to improving conditions for working people through minimum wage increases, paid sick leave, and more. Republicans and ALEC are looking to put a stop to that. The good news is that, in states with ballot measure systems, voters can override this and raise the minimum wage or pass paid sick leave, and such measures have proven popular. But cities and towns should be free to raise the floor for wages and benefits. It’s just that Republicans hate that.