Meeting Mandates in a New Labour Federalism: Opportunities and Challenges

Authors

Jake Barnes, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations
Hana Shepherd, Rutgers University
Janice Fine, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations

Abstract

Worker advocates seeking to affect labour policy change in the United States have shifted their attention and energy to states and localities in a move that has been called the “new labour federalism.” new labour federalism has broadened the scope of public worker protections, while also making the enforcement of those protections even more necessary. In this article, we draw on interviews with agencies and advocates, analysis of agency enforcement data, violation estimates, and publicly available information to understand better how federalism has created both opportunities and challenges for workers, employers, and agencies tasked with enforcing employment standards. We contextualise the discussion by drawing on a historical analysis of primary documents from the national Archives about how the Fair Labor Standards Act — the flagship federal wage and hour law in the United States passed in 1938 — was initially implemented. We argue that American federalism has provided significant yet decidedly uneven opportunities for substantive improvements in labour standards both in terms of policy as well as implementation and enforcement. Implementing labour standards laws at the state and local levels brings with it both enduring challenges and potential opportunities related to a) budgeting, staffing, and capacity; b) specific enforcement practices and strategy; c) the coordination of enforcement across agencies; and d) the creation and diffusion of legislative models. We argue that organising, coalition-building, and policymaking at the local level provides a necessary avenue to address these challenges and ultimately to uphold the rights of workers given today’s political and economic realities.

Recommended Citation

Barnes, Jake; Shepherd, Hana; and Fine, Janice (2025) "Meeting Mandates in a New Labour Federalism: Opportunities and Challenges," Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal: Vol. 45: Iss. 1, Article 7.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2819-2567.1024
Available at: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cllpj/vol45/iss1/7

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