California strikes a blow against white supremacy

No, really -- by signing SB 1015 which makes permanent overtime pay rules for domestic workers and AB1066 which mandates overtime for farmworkers after an 8 hour day, Governor Jerry Brown ended racially defined practices embedded in U.S. labor welfare law for over 80 years. This is a long overdue change that generations of workers have demanded.

Labor protections enacted under the New Deal were carefully written to ensure the support of white supremacist politicians. Consequently, they largely excluded the occupations in which black and brown people earned their livings. It has taken decades to extend what is now considered simple justice to these occupations, to "those people," workers on whom society depends.
State Senator Connie Leyva persuaded her colleagues to eliminate a sunset provision which would have rolled back the rights of domestic workers.

The United Farm Workers Union and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez pushed through the controversial agricultural worker law.

The new laws will be difficult to enforce, but workers at least have a standard to appeal to.

Now the rest of the country needs to get with it and treat these workers as the ordinary U.S. workers they are. There's a long way to go to overturn this legacy of structural employment law racism.