This Essay explores recent efforts by worker organizations to transform
labor policy in states, as well as countermobilizations by business and
conservative groups. It focuses on two particularly promising efforts: the
development of worker standards boards and pro-labor changes to state
constitutional law. It shows why, as a matter of political economy, such
reforms have been achievable at the state and local levels, but not the federal
level, and explores the potential of state reforms to build greater economic
and political power for working people, notwithstanding limits imposed by
federal preemption doctrine. Ultimately, this Essay argues that these recent
innovations in state labor law have the potential not only to reshape U.S.
labor policy but also to serve as a model for a more democratic approach to
administrative governance and constitutional law generally.
