Illinois, for instance, where I live. This just applies to employment.
The following changes to Illinois employment law take effect on January 1, 2025, and apply to employers of all sizes unless otherwise noted. Below are summaries of the changes.
MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE
Illinois’ minimum wage will increase to $15 per hour. The minimum base wage for tipped employees will increase to $9 per hour. The law applies to employers with four or more employees.PAY AND BENEFITS IN JOB POSTINGS
Employers with 15 or more employees will be required to post a pay scale in their job postings. The law applies to internal and external job postings for all positions that will be physically performed in the state (even partially), or outside the state if the employee will report to a supervisor or location in the state. Job postings must also include a general description of any benefits and other compensation offered for that position, including bonuses, stock options, and other incentives.Employers can comply with the disclosure requirements by including a hyperlink to an easily accessible public web page that features the pay scale and benefits for the specific position. If a job posting wasn’t available to an applicant, employers need to provide this information before any job offer or discussion of compensation occurs, or upon the applicant’s request.
Promotion Opportunities
Employers must inform all current employees about promotion opportunities within 14 days after posting the job externally. This can be done through an announcement, posting, or by any other effective means.EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
Illinois’ antidiscrimination law will be expanded to protect reproductive health decisions and family responsibilities. Reproductive health decisions include, but aren’t limited to, decisions to use contraception, reproductive technologies, prenatal care, or pregnancy termination care. Family responsibilities are defined as an employee’s actual or perceived caregiving for a family member (e.g., the assumption that a woman will be taking care of children or aging parents).EMPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION CHANGES
Employers will be required to provide employees with specific notices and rights when a discrepancy is found in their employment authorization documents. Employer obligations will vary depending on whether the discrepancy was found by the employer, a government agency, or a federal government inspection. Employers must also inform their employees about Form I-9 and employment record inspections within 72 hours of being notified. The Illinois Department of Labor will create a sample notice for this purpose by June 30, 2025.CAPTIVE AUDIENCE MEETINGS
Employers will be prohibited from taking—or threatening to take—adverse action against an employee to get them to attend, or for not attending, an employer-sponsored meeting if its purpose is to express the employer’s opinion on religious or political matters.The same applies to receiving or listening to communications for this purpose. Political matters include (but aren’t limited to) the decision to join or support any political party or any political, civic, community, fraternal, or labor organization. The law does have several exceptions that are outlined on the Illinois Employment Discrimination and Accommodations laws page.
Allow employees to opt out of any meeting or communication covered by this law.
Anyone know what’s happening in other blue states that are trying to protect their residents.
If anyone has a link to the other changes being made in Illinois, or any other state, please share them.
WaterGirl
If we are all the Media now, because as part of the cheerleading squad for Republicans, the rich, and the American oligarchs, we can’t count on most of them for reporting.
We’re part of the echo chamber. I don’t see how we make it through the next 4 years if we only talk about the next awful thing the new administration will do, and the next awful thing it will do after that.
Maybe we should talk about the good things Democrats do. We’ve got 2 years to make our case, and much less than that for each and every special election in 2025 and 2026.
Crazy talk, I know.
FelonyGovt
That’s for sure. My husband is seriously talking about never leaving California again for any reason.
Baud
Posted this on blue sky the other day.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
This is the right way to be.
Chris
I was living in Florida when I turned 26, tried to find coverage, discovered that thanks to Florida’s refusal to take the Medicaid expansion, I couldn’t go on Medicaid, there were no alternatives on offer either, and I basically had no recourse other than buying health insurance myself, which wasn’t the easiest thing to afford.
Then a year later, one of my co-workers actually died from a condition that would have been reasonably treatable if he had health insurance, but he couldn’t afford it, our piece-of-shit employer wouldn’t offer it, and that left him relying on either the emergency room or a local charity clinic that was only open one day a week.
As soon as I was done with my degree, I fucked right off back to Maryland. And for a couple years that wasn’t fun either. But I remember the sheer relief when I went to the local office, signed up for Medicaid, and got it. “Lifting a load off my shoulders” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I never used to have an especially strong sense of state loyalty or identity. But going from Florida to Maryland literally felt like a crossing-the-Iron-Curtain moment. In the most basic sense of “human life isn’t valued over there. I’m not saying it’s always valued over here, either. Certainly not as much as it should be. But whatever this place’s flaws are, it’s better than that.”
Lobo
In the same vein, regarding Pick Me Democrats(PMD’s). Even assuming the worst on the Biden Pardon, the scale and effect is so small in comparison to what Trump is proposing. The disproportionate reaction is weird. The question to PMD’s is why are spending time and resources on that, when your time and resources would be better spent on making things better or opposing?
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I look forward to Democrats making their case this year in Virginia. The Governorship and all 100 House of Delegates seats will be on the line in November. I think we hold the House 51 to 49 right now, so I’m hoping Abigail Spanberger has coat tails.
WereBear
Fair Economist
In CA we are getting regulation of dangerous food additives, a $20 wage for chain fast food employees, and soaring availability of carbon-free energy. Oh, and our life expectancy is years more than, say, Alabama. I very much feel the Blue State Benefit.
Belafon
Along those lines, I’m looking at trying to sell my house early next year, find a job in a blue state, and get out of Texas. All of that is actually quite hard to do in the right order.
WaterGirl
@Belafon: Keep us in the loop. It’s possible that depending on where a potential job is, there could be a BJ peep who could help facilitate things if you have to move before you have a place to live, etc.
Trivia Man
In my last job search i refused to even consider anything in TX or FL. Even if the position was in another state, HQ location was in my criteria. If i have to look again (knock on wood!! No whammies!!) i will expand that list considerably.
Kirk
@Belafon: Yeah, it’s “find a job in a blue state” that’s the tricky one for me. Over 60 tends to bounce on applications, but never because one is old. Just not quite as qualified as the younger applicants.
And I make that whine knowing as a cishet white male that I’m playing life on a setting barely over easy mode. Just lack “wealthy” to reach that level.
lowtechcyclist
Maryland’s minimum wage is $15/hour, but its tipped minimum is an appallingly low $3.63/hour for some reason.
While they say that what the employer pays, plus what the employee receives in tips, has to add up to at least $15/hour, that puts the onus on the employee to do something about it if that isn’t the case.
I don’t think the tipped wage has to be the same as the non-tipped wage, but the gulf shouldn’t be huge. I’d like to see it fixed by law at 70-80% of what the lowest-paid non-tipped employee makes.
All of those other rules Illinois has sound good. I’ll have to write my state representatives to ask them whether Maryland has similar laws, and if not, tell them maybe they should propose that Maryland adopt Illinois’ employment laws.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That’s great!
I just had an idea after seeing your bluesky tweet – whether great or terrible, you guys will have to tell me.
Overall, I think we need to education people on social media, without it seeming like education.
WaterGirl
@Kirk:
Total coincidence!
WereBear
@Chris: I got out of Florida early in adulthood, because I never had the feeling Florida cared about those citizens who were not able to afford a condo.
For instance, it has the laxest laws about doctors in the nation. Last place I’d send a relative I liked.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: I think tip wage was something like $2 an hour when I last knew a waitress in Illinois. In much younger days, but still. I think the new tipped wage looks pretty good!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m sure we’re gonna see more anecdotal stories about people moving to blue states for any number of flashpoint reasons. My wife’s volunteer work at the low-cost spay/neuter cat clinic has brought her into contact with a tech who moved here within the last year from Misery.
Why? Their adopted child is in gender flux (my term, not perfect so humor me) and they wanted to be in a place best able to navigate that and the associated issues going forward and that sure as hell wasn’t gonna be back in Misery.
So, the could (barely) afford to move to the Front Range. Great! But what about everybody else who doesn’t have that option for any number of reasons? So it’s great the our state can do these things but we need to be supportive in any way we can for those in such places that are stuck. It’s why people like Jess Piper back in Misery are so heartening. They’re not leaving, they’re fighting the good fight despite the fact it’s currently one big windmill-tilting exercise.
p.a
I don’t know… I think I saw my neighbor with a sparrow and a curtain rod.
Can’t have that going on.
David Bell
I’m a labor lawyer in California, and we have the same provisions — including a recently-enacted captive audience bill like the one you refer to.
What people need to understand, when it comes to minimum labor standards, is that federal law is a floor, not a ceiling. For example, although the federal minimum wage is something like $7.00, it’s $16.00 in California. So, Trump’s threats to end overtime, for example, really only apply to red states — which provide no greater protections for workers than the federal floor.
This is true at least until the Supreme Court rules the minimum wage unconstitutional — then we’re all swimming in the same toxic stew.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I suggest muppets.
Trollhattan
Imagine my surprise when I fail to find evidence of the gruesome negative impacts of the CA minimum wage laws (“we’ll have to raise prices a BUNCH; I’ll go out of bidnez, etc.”) by their absence elsewhere. e.g., Why does it not cost any less to dine out in North Carolina, where the federal minimum $7.25/hour prevails?
‘Tis a mystery.
Ruckus
@FelonyGovt:
I was born in Los Angeles and have traveled a lot of the world and visited/worked in 49 of the states (professional sports) and I’ve liked a lot of the places I’ve traveled to and worked in. And people that I’ve worked with and who worked for me. Have worked with a number of immigrants from other countries and can attest to that humans are human the world over. Some are great, most are in the middle and some are, shall we say, less than reasonable. The worst are those whose _ _ _ _ does stink – 24 hrs a day. Likely we’ve all met at least one of those. Or we are extremely lucky. It’s life, all the good, the great, the bad and the worst. I’ve met some that I’m sure could get a standing ovation at their funeral – but not for any positive reason on their part.
Life is funny, and somewhat often not so much, easy and sometimes the hardest thing one has ever done.
Some live 6 months, some live over 100 years. It’s not a trip with a map, and often many get lost. It can be interesting – and often is, it can be boring – and sometimes is.
It’s the one we get and know about. It’s the one we enjoy if we try. It’s the one we suffer in if we always look backwards and wonder why. Or why not.
We make stories up about the possibilities, the hopes and dreams and wonder why the future is often nothing like we expected.
It is a thing to be enjoyed as much as possible, and yet some never see it that way at all.
It is about living, not about money or fame or does anyone like me.
It is about not being an asshole every hour of every day. Some can’t manage that.
Timill
@Kirk: Depends on your field: I work in ancient mainframe languages, and being over 60 is practically a requirement…
I got headhunted for a remote job in FL a couple of years ago at age 66. I look on it as extracting resources from a red state, since they pay me and I spend none of it there.
Trollhattan
@Timill:
In addition, you’re helping them by fighting the DFHs here, so they can’t invade Florida later. Win-win.
If they send you any complementary pythons, refuse and send them right back.
Scout211
States’ Rights™️, baby! I hear that’s a thing for abortion laws.
Redshift
@Geminid: VA Dems seem to be doing a good job of laying out the stakes. They passed three constitutional amendments in committee, setting up a full vote in January:
Virginia has a convoluted process where an amendment has to pass in two sessions with an election in between, so these will be a campaign issue this year.
Yutsano
I live in Washington. We have the dynamic that the west side of the state is mostly blue (although all our Congressional delegation is) and a sparsely populated but very red eastern half. And I think I know why. There is so much resentment for the part of the state where four fifths of the population lives & dominates state politics. And they do have some reason to dispute what’s happening and how they feel their voices aren’t being considered in the state government. But it doesn’t help that most of their ideas are at best regressive and at worst bugfuck crazy.
A little more on topic: we already have some strong legal protections for reproductive health care. We have a family & sick leave policy. We’re taxing capital gains so our richest taxpayers can start putting into our stupidly regressive tax system. We have a law that mimics any environmental laws that California passes so we stay in sync with their climate change mitigation strategies. We have a shit ton of hydro infrastructure that if it were updated with more modern systems could generate power not only for the entire state but also Oregon and Idaho. But the best part is seeing salmon return to streams where they haven’t been seen in decades. Not only is this a sign on how nature can heal itself, we’re also making our bears fat & happy for winter. So I’ll take living in this blue state over any red state hell even if this place can get hella expensive.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: I was not aware of any of that!
Martin
CA has a new ‘captive audience’ law going into effect next month as well.
Most employers can’t require job applicants have a drivers license unless that’s an explicit job function.
CA discrimination on hiring, housing, etc. now includes ‘intersection of two traits’ so if an employer hires black men and white women but not black women, that’s now actionable. It also expands to race traits such as hairstyles. Looking forward to the Supreme Court arguments for the employer being sued for discrimination by a white employee with dreadlocks.
Employment discrimination can now be enforced by local government. Hopefully this helps. I know my city was struggling with a major employer having a serious gender discrimination problem and the state was slow in responding to it (probably backed up with all of Musks bullshit). I don’t know if the city would have intervened, but at least now there’s a chance they would.
Employers can no longer require employees use up their vacation before using paid family leave.
If your city doesn’t provide regulations for building ADUs (as required by law) and you build an unpermitted one, you can’t be punished for doing so. That’s very Texas of us.
Legacy/donor admissions are banned at all CA universities.
Medical debt must be removed from residents credit reports.
Companies must offer click-to-cancel subscriptions. Basically, on the signup page for a service, there needs to a single button to cancel that subscription.
CA has required insurance companies to pay for abortions for a long time. They are now required to pay for fertility treatments, including for LGBTQ families.
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: muppets and cartoons, no one takes them seriously but they can slip all sorts of ideas into your head
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: again, how did they get away with banning legacy admissions? Does this just apply to the state schools and not the private?
WaterGirl
@Kayla Rudbek: “CA universities” sounds to me like state universities.
If Martin sees your question, we’ll have a definitive answer.
Prescott Cactus
Illinois has always protected its most vulnerable workers, the unemployed. Weekly payments for laid off workers was close to the highest nationwide with MA & CA always on top. Southern states were often 50% below Illinois.
It’s been over 10 years since I had a tool toolbelt on, but some things rarely change.
Old School
@Kayla Rudbek:
Here’s the bill:
Miss Bianca
@Baud:
Yep. It’s weird. We voted yes on abortion rights and overturning a state constitution amendment banning same-sex marriage, as well as voting down a pernicious “school choice” measure, but also voted against a ban on trophy hunting of mountain lions and bobcats, and for a lot of “tougher on crime” measures as well (mostly to do with bail and prison sentencing for murder).
It didn’t all add up to a completely progressive sweep, in other words.
Scout211
@Kayla Rudbek: Late to this thread but the new bill applies to private schools. The ban already has been in effect for state schools.
Kayla Rudbek
@Scout211: Stanford and USC won’t be happy with this (although as the joke goes, the hardest part about Stanford is getting in). I think that overall it should improve the quality of the student body of any school by cutting out the deadweight legacy admissions and getting fresh blood into the system (and I do say this as a legacy Notre Dame alumna; 30-something years ago Notre Dame had an open policy that 25% of the seats went to legacy admissions, who knows what it’s at now; at least I was a woman physics major with strong SATs so I probably would have gotten in on my own).
Martin
@Kayla Rudbek: @WaterGirl: It’s all universities. Effectively this only affects privates since the publics have no legacy admissions and effectively have no donors admissions (I still have the bruises from the one donor fight I had – billionaire’s nephew was so bad nobody would sign off on the exceptions needed to give him a degree unless the chancellor did).
The catalyst was the USSC affirmative action ruling. Even though CA banned affirmative action 30 years ago, the state decided that if the country thought raced based admissions was bad, then surely money based admissions must be just as bad. “Hey billionaires buying Supreme Court justices – we just fucked over your kids free ride into Stanford. GFY.”
California gets pissy sometimes.
This will be a much bigger blow to USC than Stanford. Stanford has standards.
Martin
@Kayla Rudbek: There’s a lot of downstream impacts as well. There are money pipelines from private Catholic schools to USC, and now that pipeline has been cut off may completely annihilate some of these private K-12s.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Some people can never comprehend the concept of humanity in its entirety. The good, the bad and the absolutely, blankety, blank horrible. And often those in that last group have, by far, the least understanding of humanity. They are selfish beyond all concept. And of course a part is that the population of the world is continuing its rise. Some part of which is that we have better heath care than existed in the lives of some still living. Like me. What we can fix is a far greater percentage than ever before in history.