California Labor Federation Chief Says It’s “Shameful” State Doesn’t Offer Unemployment Insurance To Striking Workers

Striking members of the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA who live in New York and New Jersey have a distinct financial advantage over their counterparts in California and elsewhere in the country: They are eligible for state unemployment insurance benefits even though they’re on strike.

In New York, striking workers are eligible to receive up to $504 a week for 26 weeks, while in New Jersey they can receive up to $830 a week for 26 weeks. But in California and elsewhere it’s zero, as state laws there prohibit strikers from receiving unemployment insurance because they’re considered to have left their jobs “voluntarily” – even those who voted against strike authorization.

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Lorena Gonzalez, Executive Secretary-Treasurer and Chief Officer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, thinks it’s “shameful.”

In 2019, as a member of the California Assembly, she introduced AB 1066, which would have granted unemployment insurance to strikers. Her bill passed the Assembly but failed in the Senate by two votes.

With the legislature set to reconvene Monday after its summer recess, Gonzalez thinks this is the right time for legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom to take it up again.

“It’s time to re-look at that policy,” she told Deadline, “and see what we can do, because we don’t want striking workers to not be able to make ends meet; we don’t want them to be at the brink of homelessness. Up and down the state, we don’t want a group of workers – especially the massive number of workers we have out on strike right now – to be economically insecure because they’re being forced to go out on strike.”

“We’ve been talking about it this year,” she said. “It’s a big gap that our legislators need to look at as a way that they can support striking workers, because the employers have already paid into this. And let’s be clear, these workers have earned unemployment insurance. If you lose your job, you’re supposed to be able to access unemployment insurance. This shouldn’t be something different. And it’s not a real cost to the state because employers must pay into unemployment insurance on behalf of their workers.”

According to California’s Employment Development Department, “When claimants take strike action by voluntarily leaving due to a trade dispute, the claimants are subject to disqualification.”

“This has been a bone of contention for a number of us in the labor movement for years,” Gonzalez said. “This is a very important thing for them to consider. We have workers who are currently out on strike and workers who will be out on strike who are in a different position than their counterparts in other states because we haven’t passed this bill. For a state that prides itself on being pro-worker and has led the way on so many initiatives on behalf of workers, this is a place where we really lag. And when you talk about income inequality and the threat of homelessness and what is happening in some of our cities, especially Los Angeles, you would think it would be a matter of public policy. Workers who have earned this and it should be paid out.

“So often in this state we focus so much on charity – we give people a very healthy and strong social safety net, as we should – but when it comes to workers and empowering them and giving them what they deserve and what they’ve earned, sometimes were a little slower. But I think this is one of those instances where they could look at this and correct a problem that has existed for years.”

Her bill, which was supported by the state labor federation that she now leads, was opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce, which called it a “job killer” that “overturns more than 70 years of precedent and creates solvency issues for California’s unemployment insurance system,” and by the Editorial Board of the Los Angeles Times, which wrote that “Asking employers to subsidize their striking workers from funds that are already insufficient to help the unemployed is not a fair or appropriate way to help rebuild a robust labor movement.”

Gonzalez, prior to being elected to the Assembly in 2013 representing San Diego, was Secretary-Treasurer and Chief Officer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

“The California Chamber of Commerce opposed every bill I ever ran, and every bill that labor runs in general,” she said. “I was a labor leader before I went to the Assembly, so I did a lot of bills for labor, and I think they opposed every one. That’s what they do. They represent businesses and CEOs and corporations and care very little about the actual workforce.”

As for the L.A. Times’ opposition, she said: “It was a different editorial board then, if I remember correctly. I think a lot of times editorial boards don’t reflect what is good and necessary for workers, especially when newspapers – no offense – are so often owned by hedge funds and big-money backers, and not really by people who worry about the well-being of rank-and-file workers.”

Gonzalez and others in the labor movement remain hopeful that California will follow the lead of New York and New Jersey in providing unemployment insurance to strikers, especially given that Newsom signed a bill that went into effect on July 1, 2023, that allows low-income strikers who have lost “minimum essential coverage from an employer or joint labor management trust funds as a result of a strike” to have access to affordable health care through Covered California, the state’s health benefit exchange.

Historically, workers in New York have been able to collect unemployment benefits during a strike, but they had to wait eight weeks to obtain it. Under a bill signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in February 2020, striking workers now only have to wait two weeks to collect unemployment benefits.

And on April 24, 2023, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation that expanded the circumstances under which striking workers can collect unemployment insurance benefits, as well.

Hoping to follow their example, Gonzalez said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

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