When striking workers receive unemployment insurance benefits in Washington state, they are now expected to search for work. Imagine that! This makes perfect sense to me, and luckily it does to the feds, too.
The United States Department of Labor has warned the Employment Security Department (ESD) that its current work-search rule is “out of conformity with federal law and must be immediately remedied.” If it isn’t, ESD says it could lose federal funding for administration of the unemployment insurance program and employers in Washington state may lose their tax credits under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act.
The rule in violation treated striking workers as still “attached to an employer,” which excused them from work-search requirements. Since Jan. 1, more than half a million dollars have already gone out to striking workers from a fund that used to be meant for workers who lose jobs through no fault of their own.
ESD has called for emergency rulemaking so Washington state can quit getting this wrong — and not lose any money. (Washington’s leaders often brag about ignoring the federal government, but it looks like federal money is going to trump this union request.)
Starting this week, striking workers will be treated like most others receiving UI benefits. They’ll be required to complete work-search activities to qualify for ongoing benefits. (This will not affect previous claims or payouts.) That policy is much fairer to people receiving unemployment because they lost jobs.
Federal-state partnership
Why does the federal government have a say? While the state’s employers are the ones funding unemployment benefits, administering UI is a federal-state partnership. And federal law requires claimants to be able, available and actively seeking work as a condition of receiving benefits.
Paying people who choose not to work — including public educators who have turned back-to-school season into strike season in Washington state — was made possible by a favor Democrat lawmakers gave unions when they passed SB 5041. It made the Unemployment Trust Fund a strike fund of sorts. That’s harmful to other workers, consumers and employers, and it’s hard on the fund’s sustainability. The benefit could reduce the financial pressure to end a strike. Some have already said as much. Expect more and longer work stoppages in Washington state.
This federal intervention is good news in that it sends the right message: UI benefits are for workers who lose work and are seeking it. It is not for people choosing not to work. But I'm not sure how much it will change things. I also worry it will just create more work for ESD. Ensuring job-search requirements are actually met takes time — assuming they are enforced.
April Sims, president of the Washington State Labor Council and one of the forces behind making employers pay people to strike against them, is clearly working on a way to neuter the change. She told the Washington State Standard, “We are still assessing the on-the-ground impact it might have,” adding, “I don’t think this rule change will stop workers from exercising their power to go on strike.”
I don’t either. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
One of the tools at labor’s disposal might be one explained on ESD’s website describing a “referral union program:” It says, “Your membership in a participating union meets your job search requirement unless your union says otherwise. You do not need to seek work outside of your union, but you need to meet your union's rules for dispatch or referral.” ESD’s communications director, Chris Barron, tells me that, generally, trade unions are referral unions and white-collar unions are generally not.
I think striking workers will be able to navigate the search requirement fairly easily with instruction from unions.
While this glaring problem with SB 5041 has been called out (never mind that the whole law is a glaring problem and an inappropriate favor to unions), another problem is still in need of fixing: Striking workers aren’t required to report strike pay from a union when receiving benefits. Since union strike pay does not offset UI pay, the two income streams could stack and make the time off work monetarily comfortable.
Yet another problem was addressed last session with legislation that passed unanimously at our urging. ESD must provide striking workers with notification at the point of benefit application that if they end up receiving their regular pay in addition to UI benefits, as teachers often do, they will owe money back to ESD. This requirement will need to be watched. ESD told me only half of repayments are usually recouped. My hope is that workers, with proper notification, will be less likely to double-dip in the first place.
While the Unemployment Trust Fund continues bleeding money during strikes — deterring negotiation and compromise — a higher bar for striking workers and better messaging are welcome.
Workers refusing to work should not have it easier than those who have lost jobs and are seeking new work.
