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Localities can be laboratories of experimentation to advance workers’ rights

The Local Progress Impact Lab and the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program recently convened Local Progress members and unions to discuss how to build worker power at the local level during their webinar “Laboratories of Experimentation: Local Governments at the Forefront of Advancing Workers’ Rights.”
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  • Public Safety

New Tool Helps Local Electeds Create Community Responder Programs

The new resource - titled Reform/Transform: Creating a Community Responder Program - will support local elected officials in their efforts to create and expand non-police community responder programs.
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Texas Tribune Article: Texas continues imprisoning migrants without filing charges or appointing lawyers, court filings claim
  • Immigrant Justice

LPTX Chapter Manager Witnesses Dehumanizing ‘Operation Lone Star’ at Texas-Mexico Border

Last week, Local Progress Texas Chapter Manager, Kara Sheehan, spent two days at the Texas-Mexico border to witness Operation Lone Star (OLS) firsthand. Here are her reflections.
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Local Progress Texas members at the 2022 LP national convening in Denver
  • Abortion & Reproductive Rights, Economic Justice, Immigrant Justice

LPTX Fall State Download 🍂 | Budget roundup, witnessing Operation Lone Star, & more!

Here's some of the latest news and exciting updates from our Texas chapter.
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Parental leave approved unanimously for City of Houston employees
  • Economic Justice

Huge Policy Wins for Texas Workers This Year

2022 has been a big year for Texas workers. From guaranteeing paid family leave and raising minimum wages for public employees to setting construction standards and supporting workplace organizing, localities across Texas have taken important steps to advance pro-worker policies.
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October Federal Advocacy Roundup

August has been a busy time for the federal government! The big news, of course, is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which passed last week on August 16.
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We’re hiring a Membership Organizer

The Membership Organizer will be responsible for organizing in non-staffed states, particularly in rural and small localities, supporting caucus formation and preemption programming, and co-leading the planning and execution of the LP annual National Convening.
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The Network Download: Migrant crisis response, HB1 update and more | Oct 2022

Here’s a look at some of what’s happening across the Local Progress network.
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  • Housing, Public Safety

LP Members Discuss Innovative Policy Making at Route Fifty Future Cities Summit

As part of this year’s Route Fifty Future Cities Summit, two Local Progress members participated in panel discussions exploring what the future of cities could look like with innovative, equitable policy making.
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  • Economic Justice

Workers’ Rights Local Government Round Up | Sept 2022

We have partnered with the Harvard Labor & Worklife Program to pilot this approximately monthly newsletter to share and celebrate innovative local workers’ rights policies that have been proposed and/or enacted across the country—and have included links to those policies where possible.
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  • Home Rule

Lawsuit against anti-riot bill’s ‘defund the police’ provision advances

Five of the eight cities that filed complaints were OK’d to make their case. A Tallahassee circuit judge is letting a lawsuit against the “defund the police” provision in Florida’s anti-riot law move forward.
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HB 1 posters with blurred viewer looking at them
  • Home Rule

Localities Stand up for Local Control as HB 1 is Challenged in Court

Today, over a year of organizing and community support comes to fruition, as the case will be heard by a court for the first time. The eight city plaintiffs are: Gainesville, Lake Worth Beach, Lauderhill, Miramar, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Tallahassee, and Wilton Manors.
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Have a Media Inquiry?

Local Progress is a movement of local elected officials advancing a racial and economic justice agenda through all levels of local government. We are elected leaders who build power with underrepresented communities and fight to reshape what is possible in our localities all across the country. 

Want to get in touch with us for a story? Reach us at press@localprogress.org.

In The News

At Local Progress, we seek to make the aspirational pragmatic by showing how government can be a tool to create just and equitable outcomes and reshaping peoples’ understanding of governing from an institution to a collective responsibility. Here are some highlights of our media coverage:

Porchá Perry demonstrates with other workers in Lansing, Michigan, in favor of bills restoring local control to pass workforce and labor policies on Sept.13, 2023. A new report finds growing union organizing across the country has triggered an anti-labor legislative response in some states, but cities and counties are increasingly pushing back. (Photo courtesy of SEIU Local 1)
  • Economic Justice

States are pushing back with anti-labor laws as union popularity grows, policy experts say

A new report co-authored by New York University Wagner Labor Initiative and Local Progress Impact Lab details how localities are fighting back against state anti-labor legislation.
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The Chevron Richmond Refinery is seen in 2023. In the summer of 2012, a massive blaze broke out at the refinery. | Eric Risberg/AP
  • Climate Justice

California city’s $550m deal with Chevron could be a national model for environmentalists

California cities have a new playbook for beating Big Oil. In mid-August, Chevron caved in the face of a local initiative that would have taxed every barrel it produced within Richmond’s city limits at its century-old, 3,000-acre plant just north of San Francisco.
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Photograph of police sirens in the dark (Photo by Michael Förtsch / Unsplash)
  • Public Safety

Traffic Violence Is Up. Policing Isn’t the Answer.

Traffic enforcement has a place in reducing traffic violence. But LP Legal Fellow Kat Kerwin explains that without a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy, it will fail to reduce fatalities and only put Black and Brown drivers in harm’s way.
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Aaron Peskin and campaign events manager Hana Haber distributing information about the RealPage legislation in the Mission on July 29, 2024. Photo by HR Smith.
  • Housing

S.F. poised to beat Dept. of Justice to the punch, ban rent-fixing software

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance banning rental price fixing. If it’s signed by Mayor London Breed, which seems likely, San Francisco will be the first city in the country with legislation of this kind.
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press Releases

  • Economic Justice

NEW REPORT: How Local Government Can Stand Up for Workers When States Try to Stand in Their Way

This new report for Labor Day 2024 highlights ways local elected officials can advance workers rights even when facing both hostile state preemption and federal labor law preemption.
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  • Public Safety

How Localities Use Community Responder Programs to Keep People Safe

This new video from Local Progress and Local Progress Impact Lab focuses on three specific localities: Durham, Oakland, and Albuquerque to explain what community responder programs are, how they work, and why hundreds of localities are starting to adopt them.
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  • Housing

After Grants Pass: organizing to house all our neighbors

In response to the Supreme Court's cruel decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, we will continue to organize for housing for all.
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  • Housing

Local Progress Condemns Cruel Supreme Court Decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, Local Progress put out the following statement.
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  • Climate Justice, Economic Justice, Home Rule

180+ State and Local Elected Officials Urge Congress to Reject the EATS Act

LP and the State Innovation Exchange (SiX) released letters calling on Congress to protect local and state governments ability to create policy that is responsive to the issues their own communities face in the agricultural industry. 
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