NOLA Passes Workers’ Bill of Rights—But What Does That Mean?

On Tuesday, New Orleans residents voted to add language around workers' rights to its city charter, via a ballot proposition.

The proposition, known as the Workers' Bill of Rights, will amend the city's municipal bill of rights to include provisions around rights to fair living wages, paid leave time and comprehensive healthcare.

The full text of the amendment slated to be tacked onto the charter is as follows: "The people have the right to live in economic prosperity and to receive fair living wages for their labor, equal pay, comprehensive healthcare coverage and paid leave for the purposes of medical, family bereavement and vacation time," the amendment reads. "The people have the right to a safe workplace which complies with all federal, state and local workplace laws and regulations including wage and hour laws, as well as the right to organize and to associate freely in pursuit of workplace and economic justice."

New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno sponsored the proposal. In March, the council unanimously voted to approve the measure making its way onto the ballot. Advocacy group Step Up Louisiana supported the measure, which it helped to get on the ballot.

Moreno said she's glad to see the city making progress.

"The people of New Orleans value our workers and we were excited to partner with community organizations like Step Up to help deliver this important victory," Moreno said in an emailed statement.

Britain Forsyth, legislative coordinator for Step Up Louisiana, said a major impetus for getting the Workers' Bill of Rights on the ballot proved to be Step Up's efforts with dollar store workers throughout Louisiana. Previously, the group has helped organize both worker-led and customer-led actions against mammoth companies like Dollar General , demanding that the company pay its workers at least $15 an hour.

"Step Up has been working with dollar store workers for a while, and...working conditions are really hard there. The wages are pretty bad. That was definitely a big push for making it clear that we really need to do whatever we can to try to move the needle on workers' rights," Forsyth told Sourcing Journal.

Passing the proposal is just step one in a three-stage plan—particularly because it's not legally binding. Up next will be launching a Healthy Workplace Program with the New Orleans Health Department. The program will work to incentivize employers to be more in line with the ideals outlined in the new text added to the city charter.

Forsyth expects that program may be functional within the year and said the hope is to have a staff member inside the health department heading it up with a special focus on uplifting small business without the resources and influence large companies wield.

The New Orleans Health Department did not return Sourcing Journal's request for comment on the program.

Simultaneously, Forsyth and his team at Step Up are working on a Workers' Commission, which would give employees throughout the city a forum to voice issues and work in collaboration with companies for a better future. He expects that to launch either in tandem with or shortly after the Healthy Workplace Program.

While 80 percent of New Orleans residents that turned out voted "yes" on adding worker-focused language to the city's charter, it doesn't provide any legal protections to workers in the Big Easy. Louisiana uses preemption—which decrees that a lower-level government cannot self-regulate on specific issues—to prevent its cities and counties from devising their own minimum wage laws, even though the state doesn't have its own minimum wage law.

The minimum wage in Louisiana is the same as the federal minimum wage : $7.25 an hour. According to MIT's Living Wage Calculator, that level of pay is a mere one cent above the poverty wage line for a single adult with no children. For them, a living wage is considered at least $19.68 per hour; that figure increases to $37.07 an hour in a two-adult, two-child household where one adult works.

Forsyth said that, in a community where the cost of living is high, health outcomes can be directly related to poverty, with data showing a wide gap in life expectancy between New Orleans' wealthiest, white-dominated suburbs, as compared with minority-dominated metro areas.

That in mind, he said, paying better wages could carry the city and its residents toward a more reliable and robust future.

"If we can lift the wages and living conditions of poor and working-class New Orleanians, the whole city will benefit," he said. "When folks know that they have access to real opportunities, it becomes a lot easier to believe in yourself, believe in your community—and so I think there's a real ripple effect to raising wages and improving working conditions."

While legislators have previously proposed a standardized minimum wage in the state, no such action has ever made it through the state legislature. Last year, Democratic state Senator Gary Carter proposed a bill, SB 149, that would have put a $10 per hour minimum wage into effect in 2024, then incrementally increase it to $14 by 2028. The bill ultimately failed on the GOP-led state Senate floor.

Nonetheless, Forsyth said Step Up and other labor groups, including unions, are ready to continue the fight for fair wages and more protective work environments. He said he hopes that, within the near future, a reasonable and livable statewide minimum wage makes it onto the ballot, and he has faith that, given the wide margin the Workers' Bill of Rights proposal passed by, Louisiana residents would favor such an action.

Until then, though, he said he implores businesses—large companies in particular—to consider the ramifications low wages have on individuals and families throughout the state.