This post launches a new series exploring how states and cities can expand worker power in the United States. The series is grounded in a set of working papers and policy briefs that offer creative approaches for state and local action in a time when the federal labor law framework is increasingly unreliable. Each post will introduce ideas for how governments can strengthen worker voice, improve conditions, and foster organizing, even as federal protections waver. This first installment focuses on sectoral models, one especially promising strategy for advancing worker power across entire industries. 

This moment calls for fresh thinking about how workers can build power in the United States. The federal labor law framework that for decades structured collective bargaining and labor rights is under sustained attack on multiple fronts. The Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Humphrey’s Executor, a 1935 precedent that has long protected the independence of multimember regulatory agencies by limiting presidential removal power. In the recent oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, the Court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism about the century‑old decision and signaled it may empower presidents to fire independent agency officials at will, weakening the safeguards that have insulated bodies like the National Labor Relations Board from political interference. A ruling overturning Humphrey’s Executor could fundamentally reshape labor governance, diminish impartial enforcement of rights, unsettle the broader administrative state, and raise new constitutional questions for the NLRA itself. And that’s just one of the current attacks. Recent Supreme Court labor rulings illustrate a broader pattern: heads, corporations and the Trump Administration win; tails, unions and workers lose. This flip‑of‑the-coin pattern highlights how precarious federal protections can be for workers, particularly in a Court increasingly willing to favor corporate interests.

Alongside the Court’s restructuring of removal power, employers are pushing back against key features of the National Labor Relations Act itself. Corporations increasingly exploit complex business structures, subcontracting, misclassification of workers, and drawn‑out legal challenges to delay or frustrate union elections and collective action. Beyond the potential overruling of Humphrey’s Executor, corporations are mounting legal challenges to the NLRB’s authority, lobbying for narrower interpretations of labor protections, and using sophisticated union‑avoidance strategies to limit the Board’s ability to enforce workers’ rights effectively. In a major win for employers, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the NLRB’s leadership and ALJ removal protections are unconstitutional, halted ongoing enforcement actions, and sharply curtailed the Board’s ability to proceed with unfair labor practice cases. In this context of legal uncertainty and corporate strategies to weaken worker voice, it is urgent for states and localities to act as laboratories for innovation—testing new approaches to strengthen working conditions, union strength, democratic participation, and worker influence.

This first blog focuses on sectoral strategies, drawing from one of the working papers in this series. Sectoral strategies set wages and working conditions across an entire industry rather than at a single workplace. Because full industry‑level sectoral bargaining in the private sector is largely preempted under the NLRA, tripartite sectoral standards boards — made up of workers, employers, and government representatives — have emerged as a practical way for states and cities to establish industry‑wide standards without triggering federal preemption. Current US examples include California’s Fast Food Council, Minnesota’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board, Nevada’s Home Care Employment Standards Board, and local boards in Seattle and Detroit.

The working paper argues that extending sectoral models across more of the economy can do more than raise wages and baseline conditions; they can help build democratic participation of  workers. Sectoral boards can be designed so that workers are engaged at every stage — from petitioning for a board’s creation to shaping standards and helping monitor compliance. Policies that allow workers to access workplace information, lead training, and be compensated for their participation make sectoral standard‑setting itself a platform for building worker and union power, rather than a top‑down regulatory exercise.

Moreover, the paper highlights the importance of expanding the scope of sectoral tripartite models beyond wage floors to include staffing ratios, scheduling practices, benefits, training, and workplace safety. When boards negotiate across these dimensions, they help shape the lived experience of work and give workers and their representatives a voice over the full set of conditions that matter. And they prevent employers from competing on their ability to race to the bottom in minimizing labor costs. Minnesota’s nursing home model illustrates how comprehensive standards can be coupled with mechanisms that invite worker organizations to play active roles in training and compliance, fostering deeper democratic participation and strengthening networks of worker influence.

Sectoral models can also be strategic tools for organizing in building power where traditional unionization is difficult. In fragmented or low‑density industries, boards give workers a collective forum to influence conditions and build connections. In sectors where union density is higher, boards can reinforce existing standards while engaging nonunion workers in representational organizing and joint efforts to raise conditions across the industry. Approaches that coordinate standards across both public and private employment can further amplify worker power, prevent erosion of benefits, and build solidarity across different segments of the workforce.

Another way the paper suggests sectoral strategies can build power is by states and localities experimenting with prevailing standard models, where employment standards are derived from high-road employers and extended throughout a sector to avoid downward pressure on wages and working conditions. For instance, when workers and an employer negotiate a seminal contract that improves wages or benefits, boards can provide mechanisms to establish a prevailing wage in the sector. This amplifies the impact of successful agreements, making them part of a broader system of worker influence rather than isolated workplace victories.

The stakes could not be higher. With unions under attack and federal labor protections under pressure — from possible Supreme Court restructuring of agency independence to corporate strategies that evade core NLRA protections — state and local innovation offers a countervailing source of worker voice and power. Sectoral boards, if structured to emphasize democratic participation, can do more than raise minimum standards: they can help workers build democratic participation and influence that persist regardless of what happens at the federal level.

Over the coming weeks and months, this blog series will explore multiple strategies for advancing worker power through state and local policy. Each post will introduce a working paper or policy brief that addresses another piece of the challenge, offering creative, evolving ideas for how governments can empower workers in an era of shifting legal and economic landscapes. We are deeply grateful to the broad community of thinkers, advocates, policymakers, and workers who have participated in drafting and debating these papers — challenging assumptions, thinking outside the box, and pressing for urgent action to restore worker voice to the millions of workers who want, need, and deserve it.