Building a More Equitable Workforce: A Conversation with GA Rep. Park Cannon

Like millions of my fellow Americans, I’ve been fed up with Congress’ inaction and unwillingness to provide working people with much-needed support and resources during the pandemic. Fueled by this ever-increasing sense of discontent and injustice, I dropped everything to drive from Washington D.C. to the Atlanta suburbs with my friend Libby a week before the Georgia Senate Runoff Elections.

We spent our time in Georgia volunteering with Seed the Vote,  a social justice political fund that mobilizes volunteers to build the long-term power of working class communities and communities of color in swing states. Our days were spent knocking doors to get out the vote for Senator-Elect Reverend Raphael Warnock and Senator-Elect Jon Ossoff. We knocked on hundreds of doors, had conversions with voters from all corners of the workforce about the issues that matter most to them, and helped ensure that every Georgian who wanted to vote had the support they needed to get to the polls.

This experience also gave me the opportunity to meet incredible leaders and activists working to improve the lives of Georgia’s workers. One of those leaders was Representative Park Cannon.

Representative Cannon is the Democratic State Representative for Georgia House District 58. She’s Black. She’s queer. She’s a millennial. And she believes “there is not ONE Georgia – there is a sea of working families and small businesses that need a voice.”

Cannon ran for office because she wanted to be the leader giving a voice to working families, small businesses, and Georgians who need an advocate that will fight for policies that lift up all people—especially our most vulnerable.

Representative Cannon is also a member of the legislature’s Small Business Development Committee and The Future Caucus, a group of bipartisan legislators under the age of 40 who work to bring new, innovative solutions to stagnant policymaking.

So I sat down with Representative Cannon to talk about her hopes for the future of work and how we can build a more diverse, equitable workforce that lifts up all workers. Here’s what she had to say:

A CONVERSATION WITH REPRESENTATIVE PARK CANNON

PHOTO: E. M. Pio Roda/CNN

Devin: What are the things you think are holding Georgia workers back right now and stopping the Georgia workforce from being as equitable and vibrant as it could be?

Rep. Cannon: The key issue we’ve seen at the State Capitol has been providing fair and equitable work spaces for pregnant people. Last year, we saw the House of Representatives put in $19 million to combat maternal mortality in the healthcare space by adding an additional six months of Medicaid eligibility, but it hasn’t yet addressed the issue of pregnant workers in the workplace. We’re hopeful that after three years of working on legislation around reasonable accommodations, that this year the bill will pass in the House. This piece of legislation is one that I’ve sponsored for the past three years. It was originally named the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and it mandates that employers embark upon conversations with their employees if they find out they’re pregnant in order to provide reasonable accommodations. And it does not differentiate between small businesses and large corporations in Georgia. After working on the bill for an additional two years, it’s now called Working for Two. The goal of this legislation is to move more in line with federal legislation sponsored by organizations like Better Balance to say that even though there are concerns around the health of pregnant people, when they’re working the most important thing is economics. The reason they’re working is that they’re working for two. They want to be able to work up until their last possible shifts so they can have economic feasibility for their time off and claim PTO so that they can go into delivery in the state of Georgia—which has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the country—and actually feel as though they are set up for success. The bill does not mandate employers to provide reasonable accommodations, but it lays out a list of examples of reasonable accommodations that includes water breaks, stools so they can sit, and not being penalized for going to doctor’s appointments. We really feel as though this bill is part two of last year’s work to address maternal mortality and the budget crises we’re seeing in small businesses and corporations across Georgia.

Devin: What does an equitable workforce mean or look like to you? 

Rep. Cannon: The city of Atlanta is working toward getting it right. When there were national conversations about equal pay for equal work and women’s equity in the workplace, the city of Atlanta realized one of the barriers to providing jobs with livable wages was actually right there on the hiring application in the form of asking workers their salary history. So if you made $8 at McDonalds, employers would want to know that on the application so they know that if they pay you $9 you’ll be fine even though the position is slotted for pay from $10-$12 an hour. So the city of Atlanta actually banned requiring salary history on their municipal applications and recommended to the business sector that they follow suit. It would also be a more equitable workplace if the state of Georgia passed the piece of legislation I sponsored entitled the Prospective Employer Equity Act. It addresses salary history, gives a space for the employer to provide information on the salary that is proposed for the position, and allows the prospective employee to not be judged on their past earnings history.

Devin: What are the things holding workers back that you hope the State Legislature will make progress on during this session? 

Rep. Cannon: Last session, the Georgia Legislature suspended mid-session—something we have never done before. And that was because on March 2nd, Georgia confirmed its first cases of Coronavirus in Fulton County, where the State Capitol is. Businesses were asked to close, and essential workers had to wear masks to try to avoid being infected on the job. In that timeframe, there were missed wages, emergency room bills, medications, physical and mental rehabilitation, emotional distress, pain and suffering, and lastly, wrongful death at the cost of Georgians. So when our session reconvened in June of 2020 many lawmakers believed there would be legislation to address those wrongful deaths in the workplace by allowing for civil cases to be brought against businesses or corporations if they were negligent in providing adequate PPE for their staff or those who were in their business. Unfortunately, the legislature went the opposite way and passed legislation that protected businesses instead. It ultimately made it so that now businesses are protected from the new cases of COVID that are found within their establishment. So now when you walk around Georgia, there are placards on condominiums and restaurants that say “pursuant to OCGA, any person who knowingly comes onto this property is liable for their COVID diagnosis, not the establishment.” So when we go back into session tomorrow, it is our hope that the legislature will tweak that a bit to understand how sensitive this is and to exclude wrongful deaths from that loophole.

Devin: On a more federal scale, what are the policies you hope the Biden-Harris administration is going to prioritize to make our workforce more equitable and versatile over the next four years?

Rep. Cannon: As an LGBTQ Georgian, I am so proud that one of the last cases Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg decided on was Clayton County v. Bostock. This case was about LGBTQ discrimination right here in Clayton County, Georgia of a government worker. And this decision in the affirmative of Mr. Bostock made it very clear there is room for federal action on workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. We recognize there is a lot of work to do in order to influence business behavior on what many feel to be a religious or cultural issue. My hope is that we work towards The Equality Act and work to protect LGBTQ individuals in the workplace.

Devin: My final question is: What is your hope for the future of work?

Rep. Cannon: I am really proud to be a part of the Future Caucus here at the Georgia State Capitol. It is a bipartisan caucus of members under the age of 40, and we work together with the Millennial Action Project, a national nonprofit for elected officials to bring new solutions to stagnant policy making. One of the issues we have been impactful on in the Future Caucus has been legislation around ride sharing—because we use it. We know about Lyft and Uber, not simply because we ride it, but because as part-time legislators we are the gig economy workers. I know how important it is to be able to step outside of a law from the policy perspective and bring it back to the people. And with COVID-19 and the rise of automation we want to look at ways to dispel concerns about those who are aging in the workplace. It is still possible for us to look forward towards technical training for those who are aging in the workplace and use automation to support them. If I had to choose one thing on what I think the future of the workplace should look like I would say: It looks like someone entering the workforce, getting technical assistance training—whether they’re going through college or not—being mentored by someone who has already experienced the waves of work, and then all being able to gain a livable wage.

Representative Cannon shared a lot of wisdom and in-depth policy insights here, so let’s break it down a little. Here are my top four takeaways from our discussion:

• Every worker, regardless of whether they attended college or not, deserves access to quality training and mentorship when they enter the workforce.
• There is a diverse array of policies that would benefit working class people in America, lift up businesses, and encourage innovation. All of those policies have one thing in common: They are people-focused. They aim to improve worker’s lives by attending to their needs both inside and outside of the workplace. They give workers the freedom to be fully engaged and focused on their jobs by ensuring they don’t have to worry about fulfilling their basic needs. They strive to eradicate the very concept of “the working poor.”
• Any organization that asks about a worker’s salary history on a job application is not valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Every job should be slated for a set range of pay, and any worker who earns that job should earn the pay that was intended for it.
• The Civil Rights Act was enacted into law in 1964, but it did not legally protect gay and transgender workers from employment discrimination until 2019. America still has a long way to go when it comes to workplace equality, and we can continue making progress by passing The Equality Act, which would would “provide consistent and explicit anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people across key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, federally funded programs, and jury service.”

If this conversation inspired you to find out more about what 1Huddle is doing to fight for a better future for all workers, you can read our RAISE Every Worker policy plan.