States That Work: A Labor Policy Roadmap Across America – 4th Edition cover
Labor Policy Series

States That Work: A Labor Policy Roadmap Across America – 4th Edition

Alan Jernigan, Jonathan Williams, Lee Schalk & Christian Whittle • September 9, 2026
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Chapter 1: The Time Is Now

Protecting Secret Ballots

Earlier this year, Mississippi joined Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama as the fourth state to require that any company choosing to accept state economic development incentives must hold a secret-ballot election before union representation can be established. Additionally, the law prohibits companies from entering into neutrality agreements and bans the sharing of employee contact information with union organizers without written consent from the employee.

Through this reform, Mississippi ensures that workers can make their choice on their own terms and in their own time, free from outside influence. As Sen. Josh Harkins explained in a February op-ed, the bill does not prohibit union organizing or interfere with an employee’s right to choose representation if it is supported by a majority of employees. It simply ensures that the decision is made privately.

“A private-ballot election is the gold standard for protecting an individual’s choice. It allows each worker to decide privately, without having to publicly disclose a position to coworkers, supervisors, union organizers, or anyone else. In any matter as consequential as workplace representation, confidentiality matters,” Sen. Harkins said.

The reforms in these four states resemble the ALEC model Taxpayer Dollars Protect Workers Act, one of the factors that go into the state rankings. This model policy states that companies receiving public economic incentives should be required to protect workers’ right to vote on union representation through a private, secret-ballot election. It highlights the principle that state taxpayer dollars should not be used to subsidize practices that undermine worker privacy.

Oklahoma Voters Reject Minimum Wage Hike

In June, Oklahoma voters rejected State Question 832, which would have increased the state minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15.00 an hour by 2029, with over 55% of the votes going against the proposal. The voters understood the potential effects of the proposal and the impacts that would be felt by all businesses, but particularly small businesses.

A report by the NFIB estimated the economic and employment impacts if State Question 832 were implemented. It found that Oklahoma could have lost 16,000 jobs and $700 million in economic output by 2035, and that small businesses would have contributed 60% of the job losses.

Gov. Kevin Stitt condemned the damaging impacts that would be felt by small businesses and government overreach into private business activities. “Terrible policy. Government doesn’t need to get involved in private business and say, ‘Hey, you need to pay him this and this,” Gov. Stitt said. “The bigger issue with the state question is it also mandatorily climbs. It goes up every single year. If you look out over 10 years, we’re going to have higher mandatory minimum wage than they have in California. That is going to destroy some of the small businesses, right?”

Oklahoma is an outlier based on historical ballot measures aimed at increasing the minimum wage. Since 1996, there have been 33 ballot measures brought to the voters and only five of those have been rejected.

Minimum wage is one of fifteen policy variables included in the Economic Outlook Rankings in ALEC’s annual Rich States, Poor States report. This variable is a direct, state-controlled cost of labor and focuses on agreements between employers and employees rather than government mandates. Higher minimum wages can price out entry level positions that are invaluable to individuals looking to enter the workforce. If State Question 832 had been implemented, Oklahoma’s Economic Outlook Ranking would have dropped from 8th to 13th.

The rejection of State Question 832 is more than a single election result, rather, it is a statement about how Oklahomans believe their economy should work. In bucking a decades-long national trend, voters recognized that wages set by the labor market, not by government mandate, are what allow small businesses to grow, hire, and compete. Oklahomans saw through the promise of an artificial pay raise and understood the real price tag: thousands of lost jobs, hundreds of millions in lost economic output, and shuttered storefronts across the state.

When businesses are free to respond to market conditions rather than escalating mandates handed down from above, they position themselves and their employees for durable, long-term prosperity. Oklahoma’s voters chose economic freedom over government interference, and in doing so, they created an economic mandate to trust the people closest to the economy, not the government, to make it work.

Fifteen Years of Act 10

On March 11, 2011, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed Act 10 into law. This law restricted public sector collective bargaining and therefore, increased government accountability by ensuring that third party organizations do not have preferential powers over other groups in the state.

In 2010, Wisconsin faced a $3.6 billion deficit. In 2025, the signing of this legislation saved Wisconsin an estimated $35.6 billion. Act 10 repaired the budget by requiring public sector employees to contribute more for pensions and health care and, importantly, limited their ability to collectively bargain to only certain categories.

Gov. Walker sat down with ALEC to share insights into Act 10 and the results that came out of its passage.

“Act 10 was simply this idea of taking power out of the hands of the big government special interest, and putting it in the hands of the taxpayers, the workers, and the people that the taxpayers elect.” Collective bargaining was this thing that, ironically, started in Wisconsin. It was this government-run union boss technique, that, over time, not only took power away, but really left the decisions in the hands of those union bosses, instead of the people we elect to run our schools, our counties, our local governments. And we said ‘no.’ We took that away. We still put more money in the schools and the local government. We gave them more flexibility, but we just didn’t want the union bosses being the one making the decisions, because they’re not elected.”

Fifteen years later, Act 10 stands as one of the clearest examples of what happens when states put taxpayers back in charge. The results speak for themselves: a $3.6 billion deficit transformed into more than $35 billion in cumulative savings, school districts and local governments freed to manage their own budgets and personnel, and elected officials, not unelected union bosses, making the decisions voters hired them to make. Wisconsin proved that labor reform is not only possible but durable, and its success continues to serve as a roadmap for states looking to restore fiscal sanity and government accountability.