Workplace issues featured in at least a dozen statewide races, and the results create an even more complex HR landscape.
Nov. 8, 2024 - HR Dive
Ryan Golden, Senior Reporter
Much of the nation’s attention this week is likely focused on the results of Tuesday's presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections - the HR implications of which are vast - but workforce issues also featured in statewide elections, creating an even more complex labor environment for employers.
Voters in at least a dozen states weighed in on perennial issues such as marijuana legalization and minimum wage increases as well as those related to more timely concerns, like reproductive rights and the unionization of gig workers. Below, HR Dive has provided a recap of these contests, all but one of which were completed by press time.
After the 2022 midterm elections continued the trend of state and local governments increasing their minimum wage rates, several states put the issue on the ballot this year.
Voters in Alaska and Missouri greenlit such increases. Alaska’s minimum wage will increase to $15 per hour by July 1, 2027, while Missouri’s will incrementally increase to $13.75 per hour by next year before hitting $15 per hour by 2026. The two states were already among the 30 states that had minimum wages above the federal minimum according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
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Both Alaska and Missouri’s ballot initiatives included additional clauses creating the opportunity for local workers to earn paid sick leave. The proposals have maximum accrual and usage that vary depending on an employer’s size.
These requirements are the same for both states. Employers will be required to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, but employees at employers with fewer than 15 employees may only accrue or use up to 40 hours of leave per year, while those at employers with 15 or more employees have a cap at 56 hours per year.
Nebraska voters joined in on the paid sick leave trend as well. Under the state’s approved ballot initiative, workers of employers with fewer than 20 employees may accrue and use up to 40 hours of leave per year, while those at employers with 20 or more employees may accrue and use up to 56 hours per year. The leave accrues at a rate of one hour per every 30 hours worked.
In California, voters had a chance to decide whether to increase the state minimum wage to $18 an hour, a proposal that had become a point of contention between local employers and advocates in recent years. True to that observation, the Associated Press judged the result too close to call at press time, per CalMatters, with votes for “no” on the increase holding a slim lead.
Voters in other states rejected ballot initiatives that would amend the rates at which tipped workers are paid. This was the case in Arizona, where voters blocked an effort to increase pay for tipped workers under certain conditions, as well as Massachusetts, where an effort to eliminate the state’s tipped employee minimum wage by 2029 ・and replacing it with the standard state minimum wage ・fell short.
Washington state voters rejected a proposal that would have allowed employees and self-employed individuals to opt out of paying state payroll tax as well as receiving benefits from the WA Care Fund, a long-term care insurance program run by the state.
The same Alaska ballot initiative that approved an increase to the state’s minimum wage and the creation of a paid sick leave guarantee also contained a third component: it prohibited employers from taking adverse action against employees who refuse to attend employer-sponsored meetings on political or religious matters.
Per the initiative, “political matters” include elections for political office, political parties, candidates, proposed legislation or regulations, and the decision whether or not to join or support a political party, or political, civic, communal, fraternal, or labor organization. “Religious matters” include those relating to religious affiliation and practice and the decision of whether to join or support a religious organization or association.
New York state voters approved an amendment to the state’s bill of rights prohibiting discrimination on a variety of bases - including “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy,” a noteworthy addition given national debates on reproductive health rights following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Consecutive election cycles in 2020 and 2022 resulted in changes to state drug use laws, none more than those pertaining to recreational and medical marijuana use. But 2024 ballot initiatives on the subject cut both ways.
Efforts to legalize recreational marijuana use in Florida, North Dakota and South Dakota failed Tuesday, while a proposal to legalize medicinal use for adults passed in Nebraska. Both North Dakota and South Dakota voters previously rejected recreational legalization in 2022. South Dakota initially approved a 2020 legalization initiative before the state Supreme Court declared the proposed amendment unconstitutional.
Separately, Massachusetts voters voted against a proposal to legalize growing, possessing and using certain psychedelic substances. The result follows a successful 2022 ballot initiative in Colorado to decriminalize certain psychedelic plants and fungi.
On a related note, cannabis companies in Oregon will now be required to submit labor peace agreements when they apply for or seek to renew their business licenses thanks to a successful ballot initiative. Such agreements will require businesses to, at a minimum, remain neutral with respect to a bona fide labor organization’s representatives communicating with employees about their rights under state law.
Legal cannabis production has increasingly become an industry of opportunity for unionization efforts, sources previously told HR Dive.
Another niche unionization proposal passed in Massachusetts, which approved a requirement allowing “transportation network drivers” ・which encompasses ride-share drivers for services such as Uber and Lyft ・to unionize and collectively bargain with the companies for whom they drive. The proposal stipulates that any collective bargaining agreements must be approved by at least a majority of drivers who have completed at least 100 trips during the previous quarter.