California already doesn’t have enough money to pay for benefits for unemployed workers. So why would the Legislature even think about giving benefits to workers who choose to go on strike?
Gov. Gavin Newsom should veto SB 799 and limit unemployment checks to workers who are out of work through no fault of their own. If unions want to help workers pay their bills during a strike, they should increase their strike fund budget. It’s not like they don’t have the money. Labor spent an estimated $1.8 billion on election campaigning in the United States in 2020.
Expanding unemployment benefits to striking workers is in effect passing a tax increase on employers, because they fund the program.
The legislation would provide unemployment benefits to striking workers when a strike goes on for more than two weeks. People who are eligible for unemployment in California receive a weekly payment of $450 for a maximum of 26 weeks.
Beyond the basic principle of paying benefits to workers who choose to go on strike, California already owes $18 billion to the federal government for money it borrowed to pay unemployment benefits during the pandemic. According to the Associated Press, state officials estimate that it will take 10 years to pay off that debt.
On top of that, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office reports that the state estimates that this year unemployment benefits payments will exceed tax collections by $1.1 billion, the first time that has happened during a period of job growth. Should a recession take place, that number would grow substantially.
California could have paid down some of that debt with the money it received from the federal government during the pandemic. But the state instead chose to spend nearly $10 billion on rebates for California taxpayers.
It’s difficult to determine how much additional money SB 799 would cost the state, given the unpredictable nature of the number and length of union strikes. An analyst for the Assembly Appropriations Committee put the price tag at between “low millions to tens of millions of dollars.” Labor strikes are on the increase this year, according to data from the Cornell ILR School Labor Action Tracker. Its latest report shows that more than 200 strikes have taken place in the United States so far in 2023, involving more than 300,000 workers. That compares to only 116 strikes and 27,000 workers over the same period in 2021.
The governor is facing heavy pressure from labor to sign the bill, given that thousands of Hollywood screenwriters have been on strike since May 2.
Only two states — New York and New Jersey — allow striking workers to collect unemployment benefits. Newsom should use his veto to prevent California from becoming the third.
—The Editorial Board, Bay Area News Group
