“Business-backed groups that oppose living wages and paid leave have a serious problem on their hands: polls show that they’re popular,” according to (Bill) Moyers and Company in a report on Oklahoma’s new living wage restrictions. “So-called preemption laws provide them with a solution.”

ALEC-sponsored “preemptive laws” are often cited when it comes to paid leave bills (see here, here and here). A 2013 Economic Policy Institute study by Gordon Lafer (The Legislative Attack on American Wages and Labor Standards) says ALEC suggests that legislators from left-leaning states introduce bills that stop minimum wages from being enacted at the municipal level.

“In many states, big cities are more progressive than the state as a whole. As a result, as of 2010, 123 cities or counties had adopted ordinances mandating minimum wages, living wages, or prevailing wages higher than the state standard,” Lafer writes. “To combat such initiatives, ALEC’s minimum-wage repeal bill abolishes any existing local minimum-wage laws in addition to the state statute itself, and forbids localities from enacting wage laws in the future.”

Gallison, a Bristol Democrat, introduced an amendment to the state minimum wage law on Wednesday that would prohibit cities and towns from enacting minimum wage laws. His amendment reads: “No municipality shall establish, mandate, or otherwise require an employer to pay a minimum wage to its employees, other than the state or federal mandated minimum wage, or to apply a state or federal minimum wage law to wages statutorily exempt from a state or federal minimum wage requirement.”

House Spokesman Larry Berman told WPRI’s Dan McGowan the proposal is a reaction to a $15 hotel industry minimum wage before the Providence City Council. Gallison, who isn’t and wasn’t an ALEC member, supports a much smaller increase to the state minimum wage. He did not say why he wants to limit cities and towns from setting their own rate.