No new jobs will come from making it easier for businesses to discriminate against people with disabilities or cancer, women, older workers, minorities, or those of different faiths and ethnicities, said Gov. Jay Nixon on April 29 on the Old Courthouse steps in downtown St. Louis.
About 200 people hollered in agreement, and activists from the deaf community waved their hands. With that, Nixon signed a veto of Senate Bill 188, which would make it more difficult for employees to file workplace discrimination lawsuits and limit damages.
Next, Nixon handed copies to representatives from Paraquad, a nonprofit agency advocating for people with disabilities, and Mary Ratliff, Missouri president of the NAACP. Both groups were represented on the stage behind him.
On April 13, the state Senate passed SB 188, which modified certain provisions of the Missouri Human Rights Act regarding employment. Under the bill, employees suing for workplace discrimination would have to prove that discrimination was a “motivating factor” for getting fired, rather than a “contributing factor.” The bill also weakened protection for whistleblowers and capped the amount in lawsuit damages on a sliding scale from $50,000 to $300,000, depending on the size of the business.
Nixon had 14 days to decide whether or not to veto the bill. A coalition of women’s organizations, NAACP chapters, trial attorneys, advocacy groups for the disabled, and labor unions joined together to urge Nixon to veto the bill.
“We got with our friends in labor, collected a good 20,000 signatures and made sure the governor knew that we are with the governor when the powers are right and we won’t be with him when they’re wrong,” said Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis NAACP chapter. “Not vetoing this bill would have been wrong.”
Alisa Warren, executive director of the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, said after months of emailing and calling various groups it was exciting to see all the organization leaders united on the courthouse steps.
“It’s a proud day, one that we can celebrate protecting Missouri’s workers,” Warren said. “And to know that the governor is firmly behind human rights is powerful. It’s not the time to set back from our beliefs and protecting human rights, and this is huge step in ensuring that.”
Nixon began his speech by recognizing that the courthouse was the place where Dred Scott began an unsuccessful pursuit of freedom from slavery in 1846.
“Eleven long years later, after many trips to the courthouse, the decision of the highest court in the land, denying him his freedom, became a clarion call to end slavery,” Nixon said. “As history teaches us, the path of justice is a rough and winding road.”
Missouri will continue to move forward, said Commissioner of Administration Kelvin Simmons, but it won’t be without hurdles.
“As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, ‘Without struggle, there is no progress,'” said Simmons, the most senior African American in Nixon’s administration.
The bill would have undermined the Missouri Human Rights Act, rolling back decades of progress in protecting civil rights, Nixon said.
“That is unacceptable,” he said. “It is not who we are. And it stops here.”
Fight is not over
However, Nixon and Democratic legislators understand that the fight is not over. A House companion bill (HB 205) to SB 188 is still on the table. State Rep. Steve Webb, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said, “We are going to do what we have to do over the next couple weeks to sustain the veto and make sure this doesn’t have become law.”
Until the House companion bill is dead, this issue is not dead, Pruitt said. “We are going to continue to circulate petitions and put pressure on everyone and anyone,” he said. “I hope people don’t get relaxed.”
The workplace discrimination bill was a major part of the “Fix the Six” agenda, which was handed to legislators by a consortium of business groups headed by the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The chamber said they want to: address “the erosion of discrimination law” that puts businesses at a disadvantage, change court interpretations of Missouri’s workers’ compensation laws to protect businesses, limit corporate franchise tax and phase out the tax over time, eliminate the automatic escalator of Missouri’s minimum wage, reform the tort system, and lengthen the term of bonding to help the state pay back its federal loans for unemployment insurance costs.
Nixon shot down the agenda’s first pillar on discrimination law, but he signed SB 19 on April 26 to phase out the corporate franchise tax over the next five years. The state Senate passed the chamber-backed SB 8, which would make changes to worker’s compensation law and potentially decrease awarded damages to employees. Nixon has not yet signed SB 8, but on April 13 he signed the agenda’s HB 163, decreasing unemployment benefits from the current 26-week maximum to 20 weeks.
The legislative session ends May 13, and Nixon told the audience to “lock arms” so his veto of SB 188 will not be overturned.
Regarding the chamber’s agenda, he said, “I’m not trying to move backwards. And we are not going to build the economy by moving backwards on civil rights.”
