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paid sick leave
Missouri's Racist Gerrymander Is an Attack on Working Voters
As these attacks target communities of color, we’re witnessing the systematic disenfranchisement of people who’ve fought hardest for economic justice and workers’ rights.
Sep 13, 2025
As a Wendy’s worker, mother of two, and leader with Missouri Workers Center and Stand Up KC in Kansas City, I’ve dedicated my life to fighting for working families. I’ve worked in fast food for over 20 years, and I know what it means to struggle to barely make ends meet while corporations make record profits off our backs.
Today, I’m writing as someone who believes deeply in democracy, especially as a group of anti-worker Missouri lawmakers prepare to divide our community so that they can silence our voices, including my own.
States usually redraw electoral district boundaries every 10 years following the US Census to account for population shifts and demographic changes. But for political reasons, Texas lawmakers have gone ahead and redrawn their political map. And now several other states, including Missouri, are trying to do the same thing.
The NAACP is suing the State of Missouri to stop this action, calling it an “unconstitutional redistricting process” and a “blatant effort to silence Black voters and strip them of their fundamental rights.”
In Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, where I live, the clear aim of this gerrymandering is to dilute the voting power of Black and brown communities instead of letting us choose leaders who reflect our values. This isn’t just politics as usual. It’s a calculated assault on democracy and a power grab for an elite few.
As these attacks target communities of color, we’re witnessing the systematic disenfranchisement of people who’ve fought hardest for economic justice and workers’ rights. These same corporate-backed lawmakers recently repealed guaranteed sick days for more than 700,000 workers, including me and my coworkers.
My community deserves a voice in choosing our representation instead of having politicians strip it away—politicians who care more about protecting themselves instead of the people they were elected to represent.
A couple years ago, I got sick with what I thought was the flu. I didn’t have health insurance, so I couldn’t see a doctor. I stayed home from my shift at Taco Bell to protect my coworkers and customers from a potentially contagious illness. I was already falling behind on rent after management cut my hours prior to getting sick, and taking time to recover was the final straw. I missed $450—over half my rent. I came home from work to an eviction notice. My son Rashaad and I lost our home.
As a parent, few things are more heartbreaking than not being able to care for your children properly. Had I been able to take a few days off while still getting paid, we could have stayed housed. I couldn’t help getting sick, but the greedy corporation I worked for chose to abandon me as soon as I stopped making them rich.
If I had paid sick days, that wouldn’t happen. And ironically enough, I previously helped win paid sick days through a ballot initiative. Despite promises to respect the will of the people, Missouri politicians sided with big business over working families and overturned our right to paid leave. By gutting this policy, these corporate-backed politicians didn’t just force workers like me to go to work sick—they stole money from our pockets and food from our cupboards.
This redistricting scheme is clearly part of a two-pronged plan to suppress voter participation and double down on attacking the rights of working people. In fact, they’re using the same special session they’ve called to pass redistricting to also destroy a 115-year old ballot initiative process in our state constitution that won us—across party lines—paid leave, Medicaid expansion, and restored abortion rights.
But working people like me don’t back down when our lives are on the line. We stay committed to the fight for our rights, from the streets, to the strike line, to the statehouse. My community deserves a voice in choosing our representation instead of having politicians strip it away—politicians who care more about protecting themselves instead of the people they were elected to represent.
We were already living in modern-day economic slavery. Now they’re trying to put us in political slavery too. But we won’t let them. Across this country, working people will not be silenced or divided. Our political leaders need to stop trying to rig the rules and let the people decide who represents us.
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3 Simple Things a Republican Congress Could Do to Help Workers (But Probably Won’t)
If Republicans in Congress were willing to listen to the voices of their constituents, they could act immediately to help millions of workers in tangible ways.
Sep 01, 2025
When US President Donald Trump prevailed on election night, headlines touted the emergence of the GOP as the party of the working class. Just as Trump has been quick to market himself as putting “America workers first,” a small but increasing number of Republicans in Congress have also taken up the cause, championing their pro-worker credentials and even expressing tentative support for initiatives to promote unions and workers’ rights—conversations that would have been unheard of a decade ago.
This shift in messaging is hardly surprising—recent polling shows increasing support for unions and pro-worker initiatives across the political spectrum, even in polling sponsored by Republican-leaning organizations. But while President Trump has publicly touted his support for proposals like “no tax on tips” (a misleading talking point for a proposal that may hurt more workers than it helps), the White House has simultaneously launched an all-out assault on workers’ rights—effectively shuttering the National Labor Relations Board, stripping collective bargaining rights from 1 million federal workers, and proposing to scale back minimum wage, overtime, and health and safety protections for millions of workers.
It’s clear that President Trump has no real interest in helping working people. But it’s equally noteworthy that “pro-worker” congressional Republicans are doing very little to counter these attacks, and have no real agenda of their own to help workers succeed.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Workers have told elected officials—again and again—what government can do to help them. When working people are given the opportunity to vote directly on pro-worker policies through state and local ballot initiatives, strong majorities of voters—across party lines—support these policies. If Republicans in Congress were willing to listen to the voices of their constituents, they could act immediately to help millions of workers in tangible ways.
(1) A $15 minimum wage by 2026. Even someone who is working full time, year-round at the current minimum wage of $7.25 will live in poverty. While Democrats have introduced the leading proposal to raise the minimum wage to $17 per hour, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has introduced a different bill that would raise the wage to $15 by 2026—still a huge improvement that would benefit nearly 40 million American workers.
Raising the minimum wage is immensely popular, with 34 states having already increased their minimum wages above the federal level. Ten states already have minimum wages of $15 or more, and by the end of 2026 Florida and Nebraska will join this group—through ballot initiatives that passed with overwhelming public support. If the Republican senators and representatives from Florida and Nebraska would follow their constituents’ lead and join Sen. Hawley to support a raise, there would be a majority vote to pass a $15 minimum wage in both houses of Congress.
(2) Paid sick days. As of March 2023, nearly 28 million US workers did not have a guarantee of even a single day of paid sick leave. The Healthy Families Act (HFA) would let private sector workers earn up to seven paid sick days per year, benefiting 34 million workers and ensuring that they do not have to make impossible choices between their jobs and caring for themselves or a sick family member.
In the absence of federal protections, many states have taken the initiative to help workers. As of December 2024, 18 states have enacted laws that require private employers to provide paid sick leave. The three most recent state laws passed last November in Nebraska, Alaska, and Missouri by wide voter margins (though the Missouri initiative was subsequently repealed by the legislature and the governor). Even excluding the Missouri delegation, a total of 48 GOP representatives and four senators come from states that have already passed a paid sick days guarantee similar to the HFA—thus, paid sick days should easily have enough votes to win majority support in both houses of Congress.
(3) Restoring the Federal Right to Organize. As of July, 2025 almost 3 million people were employed by the federal government. Federal workers comprise a significant portion of the workforce in many states across the country. These public servants have faced mass firings and unprecedented attacks in the new Trump administration, including an executive order purporting to strip nearly 1 million federal workers of their right to form and join a union.
Whether in federal, state, or local government, both public servants and the people they serve benefit from collective bargaining. The process is a valuable tool to resolve conflicts early, reduce litigation, improve morale, and help attract and retain a qualified workforce, all of which helps the government function better. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia recognize this and provide some collective bargaining rights for their public sector workers. When politicians attempt to revoke these rights, voters can use ballot initiatives to protect them—as in 2011 when Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected an effort to strip rights from their public servants.
The Protect America’s Workforce Act (PAWA), recently introduced in the House of Representatives, would reverse the Trump executive order and protect federal workers’ right to form and join a union. This popular legislation has 222 cosponsors, including seven Republicans. Two Senate Republicans—Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—have already voted for an unsuccessful amendment on the Budget resolution to protect collective bargaining rights for federal workers. If the two GOP senators from Ohio would follow their constituents’ lead in supporting public sector collective bargaining rights, PAWA could pass both houses of Congress and restore these important protections to more than 1 million American workers.
More than seven months into this Congress’ work, the fact that none of these commonsense proposals are even under discussion by our nation’s elected leaders sends a strong message about this Congress’ priorities. And it is manifestly clear that Republicans in Congress stand with President Trump, and not with working Americans.
These three simple proposals are overwhelmingly popular with people across the political spectrum and would collectively benefit millions of American workers. A Republican-controlled Congress that was willing to work across party lines could move these proposals to the president’s desk in a matter of days. (While the filibuster might prove a stumbling block in the Senate, there are opportunities every Congress to consider legislation under rules that provide a simple majority vote if proponents are properly motivated.) It’s time for congressional leaders to step up this Labor Day and put helping working families front and center on their agendas.
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'A Slap in the Face': Missouri's GOP Governor Repeals Voter-Approved Paid Sick Leave
"The governor's action today demonstrates the absolute disdain Republicans have for working Missourians."
Jul 11, 2025
Missouri's Republican governor on Thursday signed legislation repealing the paid sick leave portion of a ballot measure that the state's voters approved with nearly 60% support in the 2024 election.
The short-lived provision, which will officially be repealed on August 28, required Missouri employers to provide workers with an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours of work. Businesses with 15 or more employees were required to provide up to 56 hours of earned paid sick time per year, and businesses with fewer than 15 employees were required to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick time.
The Missouri Budget Project estimated before its passage that the ballot measure's paid sick leave benefits would reach 728,000 private-sector workers in the state.
The bill that Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed Thursday, known as H.B. 567, also restricts increases in the state's minimum wage. The voter-approved initiative called for raising the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2026 and indexing it to inflation thereafter. H.B. 567 eliminates the inflation adjustment.
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a business lobbying group, characterized H.B. 567 as its top legislative priority. The bill was led by state Rep. Sherri Gallick (R-62) and state Sen. Mike Bernskoetter (R-6).
Kehoe's Facebook post announcing his signature was deluged with comments from Missourians decrying the governor's decision to overturn the will of the public.
"We the people collected signatures," wrote one commenter. "We voted. And we passed Prop A into law. Remember you work for us. How dare you reverse the voice of your people?! The people you took an oath to serve."
Missouri Jobs With Justice, which helped lead the campaign for the ballot measure, said in a statement that "with Governor Kehoe's decision to sign H.B. 567 into law, workers will again face increased economic insecurity when balancing being sick with maintaining their job."
The group noted that Kehoe's support for repealing paid sick leave came after he "recently called a special session to approve spending millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize billionaire-owned stadiums." On Thursday, Kehoe also signed legislation slashing the state's capital gains tax.
"Simply put, Missouri workers and their families do not deserve to see their newly earned paid sick leave stripped away," said Missouri Jobs With Justice. "Not only is this a slap in the face to workers asking for an opportunity to earn paid sick leave, it’s an insult to over 57% of Missourians who voted for Proposition A in November."
Throughout the process of pushing H.B. 567 through the Legislature, Missouri Republicans openly voiced contempt for voters who supported the paid sick leave and minimum wage initiative. One GOP lawmaker, state Rep. Mitch Boggs, said, "Of course the people voted for it."
"It'd be like asking your teenager if he wanted a checkbook," said Boggs.
State Rep. Ashley Aune (D-14), the Democratic leader in the Missouri House, said Thursday that "the governor's action today demonstrates the absolute disdain Republicans have for working Missourians."
"But in stripping workers of their legal right to earned sick leave," Aune added, "the governor and his allies have probably guaranteed this issue will be back on the ballot next year as a constitutional amendment that will place worker protections beyond their reach."
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