Hi John,

Across the country, corporations are pressuring state lawmakers to rig the rules so they can continue to exploit our communities for profit. How are they doing it? Corporations use their money and power to drive statewide bans on local policymaking so we can’t work together to care for our families, friends, and neighbors. 

New research from our affiliate Stand Up Nashville and We Decide Tennessee exposes how corporations are driving harmful state bans on local policymaking on a wide variety of issues, such as affordable housing, wages, paid sick leave, and even municipal broadband access. This report reveals how corporate influence has shaped the priorities of Tennessee state lawmakers and shows how corporate-driven state bans harm Tennessee communities, particularly low-income, Black, and brown communities. 

Read and share We Decide Tennessee’s report

Here are just some of WDTN’s findings:

• AT&T is pressuring state lawmakers to block municipalities from expanding their own broadband infrastructure to areas that need it, restricting access to employment and education opportunities for thousands of rural Tennesseans.
• Uber has worked with other transportation network companies to pressure state lawmakers into passing bans on local policies protecting app-based rideshare drivers. Tennessee communities are effectively banned from protecting people working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the US.
• Corporations have banded together through industry groups like the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry to repeatedly push state legislators to block local communities from raising the minimum wage above the federal minimum of $7.25, provide health insurance, or offer paid leave. From rural communities to big cities, Tennesseans are blocked from setting wage standards that meet their unique needs and keep their families fed. 

This report is just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve found corporate fingerprints on harmful state bans all across the country. 

Find out more in our report exposing corporate influence on statewide bans

In the last decade, we’ve seen an increase in corporate-driven state bans across the country, and things are only getting worse for our communities. We are under constant attack from corporations that hide behind lobbying groups to exploit us. Time and time again, our communities are being blocked from achieving change at the local level because of the corporations driving policy at the state level. 

Just last month, corporate landlords like Greystar Real Estate worked through the Colorado Apartment Association to shoot down a bill that would have allowed local communities to stop huge rent hikes. Our affiliate, United for a New Economy, organized tenants in an effort to repeal a statewide ban on local rent control policies. But lobbyists for Greystar and other corporate landlords pressured lawmakers to ignore the repeal so it died before it even left the committee. 

Watch and share our video explaining what happened in CO and how this is part of a larger trend. (Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook)

It’s becoming more and more evident that we need to focus our fights on the corporations that are driving harmful state bans blocking our communities from working together to ensure our communities have roofs overhead, food on the table, and access to important resources. What we’re seeing with tenant organizing in CO and the work of SUN and We Decide Tennessee is part of the beginning of a movement to fight back against corporate-driven state bans. Our communities are starting to unmask the corporations driving these bans and fight back.

If we’re going to win this fight, we need to keep exposing the corporations driving these harmful state bans. By taking the fight directly to the corporations behind these laws, we can stand up for our communities’ freedom to care for each other and remind our state leaders that we are the people they have been chosen to represent and protect, not corporations. 

Because corporations shouldn’t be setting the rules for us; we should be setting the rules for them.

PowerSwitch Action
1305 Franklin St.
Suite 501
Oakland, CA 94612
United States

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