Virginia Senate committee advances slate of pro-worker bills

The committee advanced a bill to repeal Virginia’s ban on public sector collective bargaining, as well as legislation to prevent heat illness on the job and let domestic workers earn overtime pay.

A Virginia Senate committee pushed forward a series of bills on Monday aimed at strengthening the rights of workers. 

The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee voted 8-6 on party lines to advance a bill to repeal Virginia’s ban on collective bargaining for state employees and other public-sector workers. 

The bill, Senate Bill 378, now goes to the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee. An identical bill in the House is also working its way through that chamber. Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) is carrying the bill in the Senate and serves on the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. 

“At a time when the Trump administration is illegally firing federal civil servants to the detriment of our economy, we here in Virginia are showing that we back our public service workers and the services they provide,” Surovell said in a statement after Monday’s vote. 

Expanding collective bargaining rights to over 500,000 public-sector workers, including teachers, firefighters, home care workers and campus workers, is a top priority for labor unions in the state and many Democrats. 

National support for unions has grown in recent years, and public support now matches levels not seen since the late 1950s and early 1960s, according to Gallup. In Virginia, a Christopher Newport University poll from 2020 found that 68% of registered voters in the state supported or strongly supported allowing public employees to join a union and negotiate a contract, while 25% opposed or strongly opposed such a policy.

Expanding collective bargaining rights would create a formal process through which these workers could organize themselves and advocate for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. As public employees, any raises they negotiate would still be subject to the approval of whichever government entity functions as their employer. 

Current Virginia law allows public school employees and local government workers to collectively bargain, but only if their local government or school board passes a measure permitting them to do so. Senate Bill 378 would give local employees throughout Virginia the right to collectively bargain without need of those local measures. 

Natalie Boyd Thomas is a social worker in Portsmouth who’s been working to organize a union with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. 

“It is simply not right that our freedom to be a part of a union is dependent on our zip code,” she said in a statement. We show up every day and work hard to make our communities better and stronger; we deserve the same rights and freedoms as anyone else.”

Other bills advanced by the Senate Commerce Labor Committee yesterday included Senate Bill 288, which would establish protections for workers laboring in hot conditions. The bill would require safety standards like providing water, access to shade, and rest to protect workers from heat illnesses. 

The committee also advanced a bill that would require farm workers to get paid Virginia’s minimum wage and another bill that would make domestic workers eligible to get overtime pay.