LSSC Spotlight Series: Feroza Freeland, Policy Director of the Southern Office, A Better Balance
LSSC's Spotlight Series profiles some of our incredible partners. Advocates across the country and across disciplines (from campaigners to communicators, researchers to lawyers) - all have enormous roles to play in protecting local democracy; we hope this series offers inspiration and ideas to anyone who is engaged in fighting abusive preemption in their community.
We recently chatted with Feroza Freeland, Policy Director of the Southern Office for A Better Balance. Feroza is a Tennessee native who leverages creative advocacy tactics to achieve progress and deliver concrete policy wins for working families in the South. By engaging in policy advocacy at the state & local levels and working in coalition with partner organizations across the region, Feroza works to advance supportive workplace policies including paid family & medical leave, paid sick days, pregnancy & lactation support, fair & flexible scheduling, and protections for caregivers, among others.
Tell me a bit about your journey - what brought you into this space/into advocacy?
I was born and raised in Memphis – an amazing community, very down to earth, working class, majority Black and Brown. But it’s also a place where there are a lot of injustices and inequities – like systemic racism, segregation, and poverty. So growing up, I was always very aware of a lot of the social justice issues in my own community. I began to get really involved in activism when I was in college, and I had some really amazing mentors – including State Representative Gloria Johnson. I was able to do grassroots and electoral organizing work on a number of different campaigns; and then I came to A Better Balance in 2019.
I really connected with the mission here of supporting working women, families, and caregivers. Because of my own family background and personal experiences, the work and the issues here have always resonated with me.
When did you first hear about abusive preemption?
This question is interesting because I think my experience is probably similar to a lot of people living in the South, in that I was aware of the impacts of preemption before I knew the language of how to talk about it, and before I knew it was this widespread trend.
One of the earliest examples that comes to mind was the debate around guns in parks. Memphis and some other cities in Tennessee had tried to restrict whether people can carry guns around in parks and playgrounds where children are playing. Then the state came in and blocked it.
I think a lot of folks in the South are aware of these examples where our city or our community tried to do something that we thought was in our best interest, and then the state came in and blocked it.
Since joining A Better Balance, I’ve seen how preemption impacts worker protections like paid sick days and anti-discrimination policies. Even in places where we have really widespread support – paid leave is one of the most popular policies, with broad bipartisan support – local communities are not able to make decisions about setting guidelines around paid leave or other types of worker protections like minimum wage.
What are the preemption-related trends you think don’t get enough attention?
One thing I think about a lot is the racial and gender justice impacts of preemption. A lot of our communities in the South are very diverse, but our state legislators are often primarily white men. So we have a dynamic where our communities, which are a lot more diverse, are trying to make decisions that we feel are best for us; decisions that will protect our health and safety. But then these majority white male legislatures come in and take that power away, take away the right to self-determination for so many communities across the South. It’s really problematic.
For example, there was federal litigation a number of years ago around Alabama’s minimum wage preemption law. The lawsuit was filed after Birmingham voted to raise their minimum wage, and then the majority white male legislature came in and said No, you can’t do that. A three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found it plausible that the Alabama minimum wage preemption law unconstitutionally discriminated against Birmingham’s black residents. Although the full Eleventh Circuit unfortunately later reversed the panel’s decision, the panel of judges did address the racial justice impacts of the state’s preemption law.
On the more hopeful side, I will say we have seen examples of bipartisan support for actually loosening preemption. And I think it’s important for those in the preemption ecosystem to think really carefully about where those opportunities [for repealing preemption] may exist. One example is here in Tennessee. There are a lot of really fast-growing counties surrounding Nashville. Their populations are exploding, and they need more revenue for infrastructure costs, for building schools and roads, etc. So one of the things they've explored is putting an impact fee on developers, and having developers help pay for these increased costs. That’s currently preempted, but there’s actually been some Republican support for doing either a narrow exception, or just loosening those restrictions. I think there are other areas we can find where there’s bipartisan support for the idea that we have gone too far on some of these preemption laws and need to roll it back.
We often hear about things occurring in Southern state legislatures through a lens of challenge and concern – and rightfully so. But we also know that the South is home to an enormously tenacious, vibrant community of activists across states who are always fighting back and bringing joy to the work. What lessons do you think advocates in other parts of the country can learn from the ecosystem of activists in Tennessee and across other Southern states?
I appreciate this question and the framing. One is, it's important to kind of reframe what success looks like, and to celebrate all of the wins, even what may feel like a smaller win. If we get bipartisan support on a bill, that's a win. If we get a bill passed out of one committee, that's a win. On the defensive end, if we're able to stop something harmful or even make something less harmful than it would have otherwise been - those are all wins.
One of the things that's really important in doing this work in the South is to maintain hope and fight against defeatism. I think that's really important, especially right now when we're in one of the most challenging political environments we've been in since I've been doing this work. So really making sure that we’re celebrating any type of progress along the way. Community is everything. Relationships are everything. Go grab a meal, go grab coffee [with other advocates]. Being able to take breaks and step away from the work, take care of yourself, and then come back to it – that is really important.
Another point is looking for creative opportunities to align with non-traditional allies; maybe groups that you wouldn't normally work with. We’ve been able to work with lawmakers who we may not have expected would have supported us on certain issues; but they have a personal experience that resonates with paid leave, for example. We’re able to build unexpected alliances.
The last thing is, we’ve talked a lot in our preemption work about not buying into this narrative that preemption is red states versus blue cities. We need folks to understand that preemption harms all communities – rural, suburban, urban, all of us. It’s an issue beyond just Memphis and Nashville – this harms all communities across the state.
What’s one win in this work that you’ve been the most proud of?
We worked on a paid leave preemption repeal bill here in Tennessee; we were trying to undo the state law that is on the books that says localities cannot pass any laws around paid leave for their communities. We made some really exciting progress on that bill. These more proactive bills can be really important tools – even if we don’t feel that we have the support to pass it right away when we introduce it; there’s a lot of great outcomes that can come out of that.
We actually got bipartisan support in the committee in favor of the repeal, even though we didn't have enough votes to pass it. But we were excited about that. We had local elected officials from across the state - including a lot of smaller cities and towns - sign on to a letter in support of the bill. We had a local official publish an op-ed in The Tennessean in support of the bill, and she’s from the same community that our lieutenant governor is from – so that was key. I was able to testify in support of the bill.
And we have done a lot of work on the corporate drivers behind a lot of these preemption bills. For example, because I testified in support of the paid leave preemption repeal bill, one of the main lobbyists representing corporate interests in Tennessee had to come up and testify on the flip side - which he was not planning to do. So we got them on the record. A lot of progress came out [of that campaign.]
Looking out over the next five years, what do you see as the biggest opportunities for our collective work?
I think one thing is the narrative shift, even in local news coverage. A lot of the time [preemption] does get covered as “The state is fighting with Nashville again; they’re fighting with Memphis again…” So continuing to shift that and broaden the way we’re talking about it – who is really impacted, and how is this negatively impacting communities? That narrative shift work is really important.
Continuing to use repeal bills as this proactive tool – because it shows what we’re fighting for and what we’re working towards. On our paid leave preemption repeal bill, for example, we emphasized that not every city in the state is going to do this, but let them make their own decisions. That is a very reasonable ask. So continuing to use repeal bills as a tool for cross-issue collaboration.
And then one other thing is [pursuing] creative opportunities at the local level. We’ve recently done some research around what localities can still do to protect workers’ rights, even in spite of all the preemption that is on the books.
When you’re not trying to protect democracy from preemption, what do you do to recharge and care for yourself?
I like going out on walks and just being out in nature. Nashville has some really incredible parks. We have this state park called Radnor Lake – one minute you’re in the center of the city, and then all of a sudden you’re in this beautiful, natural area. So I definitely enjoy going to the parks. I also enjoy cooking, and Nashville has some amazing restaurants!