• Missouri voters approved Proposition A in 2024, granting paid sick leave to many workers, but the Republican-backed legislature repealed it in 2025.
• The repeal affects an estimated 728,000 Missouri workers who gained paid sick leave under Proposition A.
• Gov. Mike Kehoe opposed Proposition A and suggested workers unhappy with their benefits should seek new employment.

Andi Phillips has never really had the option of being sick.

A server at a Springfield-area restaurant, the single mother of four finally has a job allowing her to financially support her family. But if she or one of her children falls ill, that financial security goes out the window.

“When you miss a shift, that’s a big deal,” she said. “You lose that money and that could be an entire bill.”

That’s one of the myriad reasons she was among the 58% of Missouri voters last year who supported Proposition A, an initiative petition that vastly expanded access to paid sick leave.

Workers across the state began accruing the new paid sick leave benefits in May.

“It was a huge relief to know that there was going to be that cushion,” she said, “and that protection.”

But it all came to an end Thursday.

That’s when the Republican-backed repeal of the law — passed in May and signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe in July — officially went into effect.

“It’s just sickening and insulting to every worker in our state,” Phillips said of the repeal.

The repeal has set off an avalanche of reactions, with activists pondering another ballot...

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