Happy May Day! May 1st marks International Workers’ Day, a day commemorating the struggles and gains made by workers and the labor movement.
Labor organizing in the US was behind the achievement of the weekend, of workplace safety laws, of the minimum wage, of the social safety net, of paid leave, and of so much more and has been crucial to any campaign for a fairer economy and a more robust political democracy.
And the fight continues.
Here are just a few things the Massachusetts Legislature could do this session to strengthen workers’ rights:
- Raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour to bring it closer to a living wage, and then indexing it to inflation so that its value doesn’t erode over time
- Strengthening enforcement of wage theft laws and holding companies accountable for wage theft committed by subcontractors
- Extending collecting bargaining rights to State House staff
- Requiring employers to publicly report their wage data, to provide information essential to measuring our progress toward racial and gender wage equity
