ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) — St. Joseph residents are bracing for potential changes as Missouri moves towards repealing Proposition A.

The Proposition, a voter-approved initiative, would have gradually increased the minimum wage and paid sick leave statewide.

Passed by 58% of voters in November 2024, Proposition A promised to raise Missouri’s minimum wage to $13.75 in 2025 and $15 in 2026, with future increases tied to inflation.

It also required employers to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. However, House Bill 567, passed by the Missouri General Assembly on Wednesday, aims to eliminate the sick leave requirement and remove future wage adjustments after 2026.

The bill is now awaiting Governor Mike Kehoe’s signature.

St. Joseph resident, Dakota Allen, said this move from the government doesn’t give him much confidence in the current democracy, and that Missourians should stand up to any party that violates voter rights.

“It’s just kind of one of those things that no matter who’s in power when they’re looking to abuse their power and overturn the will of the people, it’s time for us to step up and make sure that they can never do it again,” Allen said.

Allen said if this repeal is signed by Governor Kehoe, it will be painful for businesses that are looking to attract employees to the state, especially those in higher professions.

“We’re going to see this all across the board, there’s not going to be those guarantees that make our state appealing for employees, and it’s just going to become more and more difficult,” Allen said.

Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Missouri said in an initial repeals conversation to the legislation in April of 2025, that the language in Proposition A was not made clear enough on the ballot.

“When voters saw Prop A on the ballot, they were only given a small summary, but behind the summary was eight pages of statutes,” Bernskoetter said. “It creates a one-size-fits-all for all businesses to follow and businesses should be able to tailor their workplace policies to meet the needs of their customers and employees.”

Opponents argue, combining minimum wage increases with paid sick leave mandates in a single ballot measure violates Missouri’s constitutional requirement that initiatives address only one subject. In addition, claiming misleading ballot language, particularly regarding the fiscal impact and the scope of exemptions.

Sparking backlash from Missourians everywhere, “SAVE OUR SAY” rallies will be held across the state on Saturday, May 17, in St. Joseph, Farmington, Blue Springs, St. Louis and many other cities.

If signed into law, the repeal will go into effect on August 28, 2025. Until then, businesses must comply with the sick leave requirements and wage timeline outlined in Proposition A.

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× Expand David A. Lieb/AP Photo The Missouri state Senate convenes on the final day of its regular session, May 17, 2024, in Jefferson City, Missouri. Senate Republicans voted this month to repeal parts of voter-approved ballot measures.

Last November, Missouri voters passed a mandatory paid sick leave ballot initiative and joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia with similar statutes on the books. Eligible private-sector employees, about 730,000 people, began accruing one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked. The initiative also increased the minimum wage from $12.30 to $13.75 for all private businesses, and also authorized a $1.25 increase in 2026 that would bring the wage up to $15, with an annual Consumer Price Index adjustment taking effect beginning in 2027. Businesses with revenues under $500,000 were exempted from compliance.

Mandatory sick leave and a higher minimum wage were bold moves for a Republican state. Two hundred thousand signatures got the measure, known as Proposition A, onto the ballot, and more than a million and a half voters approved the measure, passing it with a margin of nearly 16 percentage points—a thunderclap in the red state.

“For 58 to 42, that’s very difficult for any legislator, even experienced ones who have been around a long time, it’s very difficult for them to go against the will of the people, and we understand that,” Ray McCarty, president of Associated Industries of Missouri, told the Missouri Independent last November right after voters approved the initiative.

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The respect for the will of the voters lasted about a month. In December, the state chamber of commerce, associations representing grocery, food service/hospitality, and forest product interests, and others filed a lawsuit against Proposition A in the Missouri Supreme Court. (McCarty was one of the plaintiffs.) The suit contended that the ballot summary for two issues as well as its fiscal impacts were “so misleading” that they called both the election and the result into question.

The judges rejected those arguments in an April decision. Since the measure pertained to a state law and not a constitutional amendment, however, the legislature could intervene. State lawmakers turned the case around as swiftly as the state high court did, but with a radically different result. They repealed the sick leave provisions and left the minimum-wage increase intact, except for one very significant component: the inflation adjustment, a tool that had been on the books since 2007 spanning three previous minimum-wage increases.

“It’s frustrating, it’s demoralizing, and it makes you lose hope in representative democracy a little bit.”

If legislators undermining the voters’ decision wasn’t bad enough, they also voted to send the abortion question back to voters, despite the fact that Missourians also voted to legalize abortion last November. In the state Senate, Republicans resorted to a procedural nuclear option to cut off a filibuster that Democrats were waging to keep the wage and sick leave statute intact. State Sen. Lincoln Hough (R-Springfield) joined the Democrats to oppose the sick leave move, calling it a “degradation of the institution of the Missouri Senate.” Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe (R), a supporter of the repeal, has until the end of June to sign the bill into law.

By voting to remove the cost-of-living adjustment to the minimum wage, Missouri’s Republican legislators have made it likely they will face new pressures for another minimum-wage increase a few years down the line. If they don’t, another vote may be in the offing. “If we have a legislature that remains hostile to working families, is there going to be a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage again?” asks Richard von Glahn, policy director of Missouri Jobs with Justice, a worker rights advocacy group. “What outcome are you trying to get to?”

The gambit that state lawmakers and the business leaders resorted to is the latest chapter in a disturbing saga: After voters approve progressive issues like paid sick leave and higher minimum wages, ultraconservatives in Republican states interpret a landslide victory as an invitation not to compromise, much less accede to the voters’ will, but to beat back the offending issue by any means necessary—whether by placing burdensome restrictions on signature gatherers, introducing complex rules about how votes will be counted, or deploying eleventh-hour nuclear parliamentary options.

MIKE DRAPER OWNS RAYGUN, a $12 million Des Moines–based clothing company with ten stores in four states. After failing to score a fellowship after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he took to selling “Not Penn State” T-shirts around the school and eventually ended up back home in Iowa to work on his fledgling apparel enterprise. His first out-of-state store opened in Kansas City in 2014, and today’s he’s considering expanding to other Missouri cities.

As Draper’s company grew, his employees unionized. But even before that move, the company provided sick leave benefits. An enthusiastic Proposition A supporter, he calls the repeal “infuriating” (the company started selling a “Democracy Dies in Missouri” T-shirt) and takes a dim view of the lawsuit’s assumptions about voters.

“It’s a really insulting way to view the people of your state, that these simpletons only voted for minimum wage and sick leave because they were tricked,” Draper told the Prospect. “The people went to great lengths, time, and money to get this ballot initiative on and to get it passed and to show elected officials what they wanted. And then to have elected officials use parliamentarian tactics to subvert the will of the people? It’s frustrating, it’s demoralizing, and it makes you lose hope in representative democracy a little bit.”

In his view, the push came from corporate giants with lobbyists working to keep those companies’ expenses as low as possible, often disadvantaging communities and smaller businesses in the process. Missouri business leaders worked to re-establish an uneven playing field where employers had full control over hours of work—illnesses and injuries be damned— as well as closing off any legal avenues that an employee might have if an employer failed to comply with the law that voters enacted.

Will voters take note and remember that their state representative or senator voted to repeal sick leave and the inflation adjustment? Will they care, or might they just chalk it up to a business-as-usual world, where the existence of democratic tools is no match for opponents with power and money?

For Draper, part of the problem is Democratic candidates who typically support mandatory paid sick leave and higher minimum wages, but routinely cede elections to Republicans, for example, in Missouri’s rural districts. Von Glahn also sees other impediments to a functioning democracy in Missouri’s term limits, gerrymandered districts, limitless campaign fundraising, and dark-money influences.

Missouri Jobs with Justice was a lead organizer in the coalition of hundreds of community, labor, and business groups that backed Proposition A. The organization hasn’t decided how to specifically respond to the Proposition A repeal. But von Glahn is deeply engaged in one hypothetical: “What happens now if this issue was placed back on the ballot, but this time as a constitutional amendment?”

After the election, Jobs with Justice studied how one cohort of voters understood the stakes. They conducted interviews and focus groups with people who voted for Proposition A and for Donald Trump. Von Glahn says that participants explained specific details about the rate at which employees could earn sick leave and the differences in requirements for small businesses compared to larger ones.

Their explanations “were very, very clear,” von Glahn says. “I expect if this issue is back on the ballot—and we’ll make a decision about that—I think it passes at an even higher rate, percentage than it passed last time.”

This post has been updated.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe has signed a repeal of a law guaranteeing paid sick leave for workers and inflationary adjustments to the minimum wage

The Missouri Capitol is shown on June 30, 2025, in Jefferson City, Mo., as decorated for Independence Day celebrations. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

The Missouri Capitol is shown on June 30, 2025, in Jefferson City, Mo., as decorated for Independence Day celebrations. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

The Missouri Capitol is shown on June 30, 2025, in Jefferson City, Mo., as decorated for Independence Day celebrations. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

The Missouri Capitol is shown on June 30, 2025, in Jefferson City, Mo., as decorated for Independence Day celebrations. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Eight months after voters approved it, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed the repeal of a law Thursday that had guaranteed paid sick leave to workers and inflationary adjustments to the minimum wage.

The move marked a major victory for the state’s largest business group and a frustrating defeat for workers’ rights advocates, who had spent years — and millions of dollars — building support for the successful ballot measure. The repeal will take effect Aug. 28.

Kehoe, who also signed a package of tax breaks Thursday, described the paid sick leave law as an onerous mandate that imposed burdensome record-keeping.

“Today, we are protecting the people who make Missouri work — families, job creators, and small business owners — by cutting taxes, rolling back overreach, and eliminating costly mandates,” Kehoe, a Republican, said in a statement released after a private bill-signing ceremony.

The new tax law excludes capital gains from individual state income taxes, expands tax breaks for seniors and disabled residents and exempts diapers and feminine hygiene products from sales taxes.

Richard von Glahn, who sponsored the worker benefit ballot initiative, said many parents felt forced to go to work, instead of staying home to care for a sick child, in order to pay for their rent or utilities.

“The governor signing this bill is an absolute betrayal to those families, and it hurts my heart,” said von Glahn, policy director for Missouri Jobs With Justice.

About one-third of states mandate paid sick leave, but many businesses voluntarily provide it. Nationwide, 79% of private-sector employees received paid sick leave last year, though part-time workers were significantly less likely to receive the benefit than full-time employees, according to Department of Labor data.

Voters in Alaska, Missouri and Nebraska all approved paid sick leave measures last November. Only Alaska’s, which kicked in on July 1, has remained unchanged by state lawmakers.

Before Nebraska’s measure could take effect Oct. 1, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen signed a measure last month exempting businesses with 10 or fewer employees from the paid sick leave requirements. The revision also lets businesses withhold paid sick leave from seasonal agricultural workers and 14- and 15-year-olds.

Missouri’s law allowed employees to earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, starting May 1. By the time it’s repealed, 17 weeks will have elapsed. That means someone working 40 hours a week could have earned 22 hours of paid sick leave.

If workers don’t use their paid sick leave before Aug. 28, there’s no legal guarantee they can do so afterward.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry had made repealing the law its top legislative priority.

The “paid leave and minimum wage policies were a job killer,” chamber President and CEO Kara Corches said.

But Missouri voters could get a second chance at mandating paid sick leave.

Von Glahn has submitted a proposed ballot initiative to the secretary of state that would reinstate the repealed provisions. Because the new measure is a constitutional amendment, the Legislature would be unable to revise or repeal it without another vote of the people. Supporters haven’t decided whether to launch a petition drive to try to qualify the measure for the 2026 ballot.

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Low-wage Missouri workers who just started accruing paid sick days this month are now likely to lose them by the end of August, courtesy of their Republican legislators.

Lawmakers in the state Senate approved a bill last week overturning new sick leave protections that voters had approved by referendum in November 2024. The repeal passed 22-11 over a Democratic filibuster effort, with all but one Republican in support, after already passing the GOP-controlled state House.

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The bill is now headed for the desk of Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, who suggested on Friday he would sign it.

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If he does, employers in the state would no longer be obligated to provide workers with one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work, capped at 56 hours per year. The requirement would end on Aug. 28, having only gone into effect on May 1.

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Missourians had approved the sick leave protections by a wide margin, with nearly 58% voting in support.

Richard von Glahn, policy director at the worker center Missouri Jobs with Justice, said it was disappointing to see legislators reverse the will of their constituents. He noted that last week the state’s Republicans also proposed a new constitutional amendment to nullify voter-approved abortion protections.

“People don’t like being told they’re stupid,” von Glahn told HuffPost. “It’s really a plague that’s infected the Republican Party here.”

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The new sick leave law also included a new formula raising the state’s minimum wage. An increase to $15 slated for next year will remain intact, but subsequent cost-of-living increases will be blocked by the GOP repeal. That means lawmakers or voters would have to approve any raises after 2026.

A spokesperson for Kehoe did not immediately respond Monday when asked about the governor’s plans for the legislation. Last week he called the repeal “a huge issue to both small and large business and economic developers.”

Unlike other wealthy countries, the U.S. does not require employers to provide sick leave. So an estimated 20% of workers go without it, meaning they lose a day’s pay when they have to care for themselves or a loved one who’s ill. Those with no access to paid sick days are much more likely to work in low-wage jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signaled he’s likely to sign the bill overturning the state’s new paid sick leave mandate. Kansas City Star via Getty Images

Without a federal law in place, a growing number of states and localities are approving their own — including those that lean conservative. Referendums similar to Missouri’s also passed in Alaska and Nebraska last fall, giving backers of the proposals a way around GOP opposition in legislatures. Those ballot measures brought the total number of states with sick leave mandates to 18.

Business groups opposed the sick leave measure in Missouri and quickly tried to scuttle the new law through a legal challenge. But the state Supreme Court in April upheld the results of the referendum, known as Proposition A, leaving the state legislature the main avenue for repeal.

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Von Glahn said the labor and public health groups that supported the law sought a compromise with the state’s GOP legislators, proposing a carveout so that firms with 10 or fewer employees would be exempt. Under that scenario, more than 80% of workers in the state would still have protections, but the smallest employers would not be bound to the law, he said.

“That’s kind of the definition of a compromise,” von Glahn said. “They walked away from it and never really came back into serious conversations about it.”

He called the procedural maneuver Republicans used to end the Democratic filibuster last Wednesday a “nuclear option” to push the repeal through. The state’s legislative session ended on Friday.

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For now, the existing law remains in effect, at least until the end of August. By then, many employers will have given their workers paid sick days for the first time — and will have to decide whether they want to strip them away moving forward. Doing so could save on labor costs, but runs the risk of alienating loyal employees.

Backers of the sick leave law are also free to pursue another referendum. Von Glahn said he filed paperwork for one the day after the Senate voted for repeal. If supporters gather enough signatures, a similar proposal could end up on the ballot in the fall of 2026.

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Von Glahn is optimistic about its chances.

“Do I think Missouri voters who passed something with 58% support would pass it again, probably with higher support, if they’re told politicians took it away from [them]? Yes,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a hard campaign.”