Legal Rights Are Only Meaningful If They Can Be Enforced
Workplace law grants us rights in theory: the right to a minimum wage; the right to overtime pay; the right not to be discriminated against; and the right to talk to coworkers about pay.
But for tens of millions of workers, these “rights” are not realities. It is too easy for employers to violate workers’ rights, and entirely too hard for workers to get justice when they do. States can change that.
What We Need for Workers to Enforce Their Rights
Laws that give workers a “right,” but without the private right to bring lawsuits themselves, along with employer weaponization of forced arbitration provisions, shut courthouse doors to workers. So, too, do short statutes of limitations and laws that do not apply to employers with smaller workforces. And even when none of these barriers to justice are in play, workers fear retaliation. Inadequate antiretaliation and whistleblower protection laws keep even more workers from defending their rights.
The impediments to workers getting justice only continue after they file a claim. The “fissured workplace”—where the entity that directs the work may be different than the one that issues the paycheck—allows employers to evade their legal responsibilities to their workers.
Finally, even when workers successfully navigate the system to win a judgment against a violating employer, remedies are often inadequate. Worker damages in antidiscrimination lawsuits are capped at untenably low levels, and employers can dodge judgments by reorganizing a company. All of these problems with the civil justice system hit low-income Americans particularly hard: low-income Americans do not get any or enough help with 92% of their substantial civil legal problems (Legal Services Corporation 2022).
State legislatures can fight all of this.
What States Can Do
Opening the Courthouse Doors
Qui Tam: Suing on behalf of the State
Qui tam systems like California’s Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) permit workers to sue on behalf of the state to enforce violations of California’s Labor Code. Proceeds from successful PAGA suits help increase resources for enforcement. Between 2016 and 2019, PAGA suits generated an average of $42 million annually for the state labor agency (UCLA Labor Center 2020).
Expand Workers’ Rights Laws to Apply to More Employers
In many states, workers’ rights laws like the state antidiscrimination law only apply to employers with a specific number, or more, of workers. This unfairly shuts workers on small teams out of legal protection. States should extend the coverage of their worker protection statutes to cover employers with smaller workforces, as Illinois did with its Human Rights Law in 2019, defining “employers” as “any person employing one or more employees” within Illinois for 20 weeks or more.
775 ILCS 5/Illinois Human Rights Act
Lengthen Statutes of Limitations
It can take time for workers to come forward and pursue legal claims. States should increase the statute of limitations on their workplace rights laws to at least three years, as New York did in 2024 for its Human Rights Law.
New York Assembly Bill A00501
Grant Organizational Standing
Washington DC consumer protection law provides standing to consumer advocacy groups to sue to enforce violations. Employment law can follow this model and provide similar organizational standing to worker centers and nonprofit advocacy organizations.
Code of the District of Columbia § 28-3905
Prohibit Contractual Waiver of Employment Rights
New York’s proposed Anti-Waiver of Employment Rights Act would declare void clauses in employment contracts purporting to waive substantive or procedural legal rights such as freedom from discrimination, a full statute of limitations period, or state collective action procedures.
New York Assembly Bill A5411A
Protecting Workers at Their Most Vulnerable
Pass Just Cause
Under “at will” employment, employers can fire workers for any reason or no reason at all. Just cause termination standards are a must for getting workers justice, and New York City’s proposed just cause ordinance is an excellent just cause model for other jurisdictions to follow.
New York City proposed Int. No. 909
Strengthen Whistleblower & Antiretaliation Law
Colorado’s False Claims Act features a qui tam mechanism so that whistleblowers can sue to enforce the statute themselves, and earn part of any recoveries the government makes. It also prohibits retaliation against such whistleblowers.
Colorado HB22-1119
Arizona’s antiretaliation law features a private right of action; enhanced damages in addition to unpaid wages; attorney’s fees and costs; a rebuttable presumption that adverse actions taken by an employer against an employee within 90 days of the exercise of a protected right are retaliatory; and civil penalties.
Arizona Revised Statutes Title 23. Labor § 23-364
New York state’s antiretaliation law is also a solid model, providing liquidated damages of up to $20,000 in certain circumstances for violations.
New York Labor Law § 215
Stopping Employers From Evading Responsibility to Workers
Temporary Workers
Illinois’ 2023 legislation in this area mandates that temporary workers assigned by a staffing agency to a client for more than 90 days must be paid at the same rate as direct hires. It also features safety and training requirements to keep temp workers protected on the job; gives temporary workers the right to refuse to be assigned to a worksite where a labor dispute such as a strike is taking place; expands standing to enforce the law; and provides civil penalties for violations.
820 ILCS 175/Day and Temporary Labor Services Act
Subcontractors
In Washington D.C., general contractors are jointly and severally liable to workers, alongside their subcontractors, for violations of workplace law, meaning workers can collect all of a judgment from the general contractor or the subcontractor, or part from each.
Code of the District of Columbia § 32-1012
Independent Contractors
States can and should change the legal tests they use to assess whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor to more accurately reflect workers’ relationships to their employers, such as with ABC tests, but there are other, innovative approaches in specific legal domains that states can adopt as well. Maryland’s Home Care Workers’ Rights Act of 2024, denying state Medicaid reimbursement to home health centers that misclassify their home health aides as independent contractors, is one good example.
Maryland House Bill 39
End Damage Caps
Unreasonably low caps on the amount that a worker can recover in an antidiscrimination lawsuit prevent workers from being made whole. States should eliminate these caps, or or at minimum enact meaningful increases in the caps, as Maine has done with its Human Rights Act.
Maine H.P. 919
Pre-Judgment Liens
Employers will often understate the assets out of which they could satisfy such a judgment to evade payouts. In California, courts may place liens on an employer’s real (§238.2) or personal (§238.3) property in wage theft cases prior to judgment, to prevent such gaming the system.
California Labor Code § 238.2
California Labor Code § 238.3
Help Build the Clearinghouse
If you have proposals for pro-worker policies—whether already implemented in a particular state or ones you’d like to see established—we encourage you to share your suggestions. We welcome additions to our clearinghouse that align with one of our five key policy areas. Please send such submissions to .
