State Policy Clearinghouse

Access to Justice: The basic issues of getting your day in court and having meaningful remedies are too often uncertain in workplace law. Too often, workplace laws don’t allow workers to bring their own claims, or don’t provide meaningful relief such that workers think it’s worthwhile to bring a claim and can find a lawyer to represent them. Even more, employers have too much leeway to retaliate against workers who bring claims and scare them away from bringing claims at all. Some employers structure their workforce by using temp workers or so-called “independent contractors” to avoid responsibility altogether. States urgently need reform to make sure that employers can be held accountable.

Forced Arbitration: Employers use forced arbitration to evade accountability when they steal workers’ wages and discriminate against their employees. Addressing this problem at the federal level is imperative, but state legislatures can also help combat such uses of forced arbitration by regulating arbitration providers so that providers must disclose basic facts about what they do and abide by minimum standards of due process, and by making sure state contract law only recognizes a waiver of the right to a day in court when workers voluntarily choose to do so.

Coercive Contracts: In addition to forced arbitration, employers too often impose “fine print” provisions on workers as a condition of their job that limit worker freedom. These include everything from nondisclosure agreements and noncompete provisions to “stay or pay” Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (“TRAPs”) and more. State legislatures around the country can and have shaped contract law to prevent employers from enforcing these unfair provisions that limit workers’ mobility and ability to speak out against abusive working conditions.

Wage Theft: Federal law protects the right to a minimum wage and overtime, but state law—and state and local enforcers—can go even further in protecting workers from wage theft. Workers lose more money to wage theft annually than is lost to all other forms of property crime in the United States combined. And even when workers succeed in claims against their employers, they are often not able to collect because shady companies will change their name or hide their assets to avoid paying what they owe. States can do more to help workers get real justice.

Antidiscrimination: Federal and state law often imposes an impossibly high standard to prove discrimination such that legitimate claims fail, even with plenty of evidence. And procedural hurdles often drag out the justice process beyond what a worker should have to endure. But some states have lowered these barriers to a more reasonable level that is fair to employers and workers, and more states can do so.