Policy Advocacy

What is it?

Towards Justice serves as lawyers for the movement to advance economic equity and build power for workers. Very often, we collaborate with workers and workers' organizations to advance policies that expand workers' rights, attack racism in the marketplace, and protect marginalized and exploited workers. That work includes advising coalitions on the legal tools available to attack structural challenges, drafting legislation, or supporting workers through administrative rulemaking processes. A few examples of our policy advocacy work include:

• Empowering Labor Platform Workers by supporting workers in the fight for fair treatment, transparency, and the protection of hard-fought labor standards.
• Supporting Workers Challenging Unfair Competition in the labor market by advising policymakers, advocates, and administrative agencies on the dangers posed by monopolistic employers and practices that interfere with workers' right to exercise bargaining power by seeking higher wages and better treatment.
• Protecting Workers and Consumers from Forced Arbitration by supporting advocates and policy makers in designing tools to ensure that critical protections are enforced in ways that empower workers even in the face of forced arbitration provisions in the terms and conditions of their contracts.
• Fortifying State Wage and Hour Protections by offering suggestions and technical support to policy makers and advocates involved in revising Colorado wage and hour law. Our work has included technical advice regarding the definition of employer in the Colorado Wage Act, implementation of individual liability for employers who steal wages, and development and fortification of the administrative wage claim adjudication process at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. We also collaborated with partners to successfully encourage an increase in the minimum salary threshold for overtime exemption in Colorado and regularly offer technical advice regarding improvements to regulations implementing state wage and hour law. We have also chaired Colorado's Wage Theft Task Force.
• Strengthening City of Denver Wage and Hour Protections by offering suggestions and technical support to policy makers and advocates involved in revising Denver wage and hour law. Our work has included technical advice regarding expansion of retaliation protections and forming the office of Denver Labor within the Denver Auditor’s Office.
• Protecting Worker Voice in the Face of Threats to Workplace Safety and Health by providing technical support for lawmakers interested in protecting workers against retaliation for speaking out about mistreatment.
• Protecting Workers from Unfair Scheduling Practices by supporting advocates and policymakers in drafting and advancing Fair Work Week legislation in Colorado.
• Expanding Agricultural Worker Protections in Colorado by collaborating with a broad coalition of partners to advance Senate Bill 21-087 (“SB87”) regarding Agricultural Labor Rights and Responsibilities.  SB87 provides long-overdue entitlements to Colorado’s agricultural workforce, including the right to minimum wage and overtime protections, and the right to bargain collectively to improve working conditions. The Act also protects agricultural workers from retaliation, grants meal breaks and rest periods, ensures access to transportation and key service providers, and offers health and overwork protections.  After passage of the act, Towards Justice offered extensive comments on agency implementation of the Act’s overtime, heat stress, and service provider access provisions.