Posts tagged social welfare
Commentary: Labor Law’s Illiberal Trajectory
November 11, 2026 // State policymakers are following the same playbook. For example, in Massachusetts, California, and Illinois, they have created new “sectoral bargaining” systems for rideshare drivers. These systems group all drivers into a single election unit and slash the thresholds for union organizing. If as few as 2.5 percent of them say they want a union, the union gets contact information for the remaining 97.5 percent. And if the union then gets signatures from as few as 15 percent, it becomes their exclusive representative. The drivers never vote: they just wake up one day and find themselves in a union. Some states are going even further, experimenting with “industry standards” boards. These boards essentially replace workplace-level bargaining with industry-wide regulation.