Emboldened by Louisiana’s election last fall of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature will try over the next few months to weaken public-sector unions and slash worker benefits.
A cluster of at least 15 proposed laws takes aim at public-sector unions’ ability to bargain with employers, the system for compensating workers sidelined by injury and a requirement that child laborers must receive lunch breaks. Others would cut unemployment benefits and limit how much doctors can make when treating people for workers' compensation claims.
The state’s powerful teacher unions, Democratic lawmakers and labor advocates for eight years had staved off similar legislation with help from former Gov. John Bel Edwards, a pro-union Democrat who often vetoed Republican priorities. Now Republicans are seizing on Landry’s ascent — and their House and Senate supermajorities — to power through a slew of conservative priorities including the labor bills, policies they say should strengthen employers’ hands and limit improper flow of tax dollars.
“In the last seven years we were mainly on defense to prevent certain situations getting worse in terms of labor,” said Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, who’s carrying two bills to restrict union activities, House bills 571 and 572. “I don’t think anyone can deny there’s been a mandate by the people they want change — and I don’t mean incremental.”
At least five bills aim to dismantle powers currently held by public-sector unions, including the state teacher unions. One notably would outlaw collective bargaining for teachers and some other groups, such as city workers in New Orleans, though not for police and firefighters’ organizations. Others aim to make it harder for unions to collect dues through payroll deductions and to require new union elections every two years.
At least nine others propose sweeping changes to the state workers’ compensation system. The legislation would shorten periods when disabled workers can collect pay, lower the rates at which doctors can be paid for treating workers' compensation recipients and abolish a stakeholder advisory board made up of labor and industry interests, among other bills.
Landry's press secretary did not respond to questions about the governor's stance on the legislation.
Union leaders and organizers describe the wave of legislation as a historic threat to workers’ rights and their already-limited policymaking clout at the Capitol. Two of the state’s prominent public-sector unions, the Louisiana Association of Educators and the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, have been a reliable source of support for Democratic politicians, such as Edwards.
“The companies have plenty of representation, the insurance associations have plenty,” said Louis Reine, head of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, a labor union representing public and private-sector workers that backed Democrat Shawn Wilson in last year’s gubernatorial race. “When it comes to the average person who wakes up, goes to work every day and goes home, there's not a lot of people up there vouching for us."
Anti-union bills
Anti-union legislation filed in Louisiana mirrors a swath of bills approved by other Republican legislatures. In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ushered through a bill that prohibits automatic dues deductions from employee paychecks and mandates language on union authorization cards that reaffirms the state’s “right to work” status — versions of which were filed in Louisiana.
Louisiana is already a “right-to-work" state, one of over two dozen in the U.S. where workers can opt out of union membership, but unions may still bargain on the group’s behalf. If HB572 passes, it would create a wholesale ban on public employers engaging in collective bargaining over benefits and workplace conditions. (The bill may not affect independent charter school teachers, as charters have been granted unionizing rights in the past under federal National Labor Relations Board rules.)
The bill targets teachers’ unions but not organizations such as the Louisiana Fraternal Order of Police. Crews said he prioritized teacher unions because he heard directly from several teachers worried about their unions’ political activities, but not from police or firefighters. He added that it would be challenging to advance legislation seen as targeting the politically powerful police and firefighter unions.
LAE President Tia Mills denied claims that local unions have been co-opted by liberal politics, describing her organization as politically diverse. Dave Cash, an organizer and teacher in New Orleans, described the Louisiana unions he's worked with as movements driven by popular demand from teachers for better working conditions — not groups that force anyone to join.
“We haven’t twisted anyone’s arm,” Mills said. “It’s completely voluntary for them to join the union."
Crews’ other bill, HB571, would bar public agencies from spending money in the service of “union-related activities” — again preventing negotiations between agencies and labor unions.
Another bill, HB523, carried by Rep. Roger Wilder III, R-Denham Springs, would require unions to hold new elections every two years to maintain their units. It would require a 60% vote to do so; if a union receives less than that, it would be barred from representing that unit for one year. Wilder’s office did not return a phone call and email requesting an interview.
Daniel Erspamer, president of the Pelican Institute, a New Orleans-based conservative think tank, said holding frequent union elections gives workers more opportunity to pick their representation. In states with similar laws, Erspamer said, “we’ve seen local bargaining units decertify altogether. We’ve seen them pick other unions. We hear, anecdotally, that they get better representation.”
Union leaders are also concerned about state Sen. Alan Seabaugh’s Senate Bill 264, which, like the legislation in Florida, would make it harder for state employers to deduct union dues from paychecks and require them to alert workers of their right to join or not join a union. Mills said her union’s members can choose to pay dues by methods including credit card and check, not just through payroll deductions.
Worker's comp, child labor bills
Republicans are also targeting workers compensation and child labor rules. Louisiana employers must buy insurance coverage for when employees are injured or disabled on the job. The coverage lets injured workers claim a portion of their wages while they're recovering — costs covered by the insurance firms, including the state’s largest, the Louisiana Workers Compensation Corp.
The workers’ compensation market is relatively stable for employers: Their rates have fallen by 49% over the past ten years, according to the Louisiana Department of Insurance.
Yet industry interests say the legislation would trim inefficiencies that have still made the system overly burdensome. The current environment lets trial lawyers reap profit from the claims process and drives rates higher than they should be, said Will Green, CEO of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, the state’s powerful business lobby.
“In an environment where we’re losing workers, we need confidence for workers that they’re going to get the care they need, that they’re not going to get caught in a system that encourages inefficiencies or encourages ambiguities and encourages an attorney to manipulate the system,” said Green, whose group was founded in the 1970s to carry the mantle of the “right to work” movement.
Seabaugh and state Rep. Michael Melerine, both attorneys from north Louisiana, are carrying the bulk of the workers compensation bills; both work at Seabaugh’s law firm, which mostly represents insurance firms that often write workers compensation policies for employers. Seabaugh, who chairs the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, declined to comment on his bills Thursday, saying some are duplicative of other legislation and he hasn’t yet picked which ones to advance. Melerine did not respond to interview requests.
Perhaps the most transformative of the proposed workers’ compensation bills is Seabaugh’s SB315. The bill proposes eliminating some benefits when workers can engage in “self-employment or occupation for wages.” For all types of benefits, it would stop workers’ compensation after 6½ years compared with a current 10-year cap. Current law also makes companies pay penalties for certain missteps under the system, such as when outstanding wages or benefits workers aren’t paid; Melerine’s HB703 would place a $2,000 cap on those penalties.
Industry arguments for the bills are bitterly contested by people who represent workers in the disability claims process. Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, an attorney and former Senate labor committee chair whose firm represents workers' comp claimants, called the legislation “draconian,” saying it will do little more than harm people trying to be made whole after workplace accidents.
“The first question that comes to mind is why do we need this legislation? What’s the reason we’re cutting back and taking the rights from injured workers?” Luneau said. “In the last 15 years or so, workers comp insurance rates have come down about 60% in the state of Louisiana. I don’t know that anyone would deny we have a soft market."
Another bill, House Bill 156 by Wilder, would remove a requirement that child laborers receive lunch breaks. Like the anti-union bills popular among conservatives, attempts at rolling back child labor regulations have recently passed other Republican-controlled statehouses.
The state House and Senate next convene on Monday.