Don’t extend unemployment benefits to striking workers

Washington state’s unemployment insurance system has a crystal-clear mission: to provide a temporary income to workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. The state Senate should reject a bill that would fundamentally alter that mission to include workers who choose to go on strike.

Such a change would undermine this longstanding social safety net, and increase costs not just for employers with striking workers but for the whole unemployment system, a state analysis predicts. It would also upend the delicate balance between different labor unions and management at bargaining tables around the state, a move with potential consequences at big employers like Boeing, smaller local school districts, and many others in between.

For 86 years, Washington’s displaced workers have been able to draw financial assistance from the state if they were laid off without cause. A tax on businesses in the state fills the coffers of the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which today has about $3.5 billion. The state’s Employment Security Department expects to spend about $1.3 billion this year to cover claims. And it’s more than just dollars, as the state requires participants to network, look for jobs or take courses to add new skills to collect a weekly benefit.

Saying she wanted to “level the playing field for our workers,” Rep. Beth Doglio, D-Olympia, sponsored House Bill 1893, tapping into unemployment insurance for striking workers. The bill, which passed the House 53-44 on Feb. 12, included an amendment to cap those workers at a maximum of four weeks of benefits. After passing the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, the bill could be taken up on the floor.

Only three states, New Jersey, New York and Maine, have allowed striking workers to access jobless benefits. New Jersey averaged 1,120 claims for striking workers in its first two years with the law, the ESD reports. Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom wisely vetoed such legislation in 2023, arguing the fund California uses to pay its unemployment benefits was closing in on $20 billion in debt and couldn’t afford any added expenses.  

The ESD generated scenarios for lawmakers in Olympia, including the prospect of a 30,000-member strike (think Boeing-sized), with $1,019 — the maximum benefit — sent to each person for four weeks. That would add up to a $122 million hit on the unemployment insurance trust fund. Employers around the state would have to foot the bill to replenish the fund.

In that example, $38 million alone would need to come from the company whose workers went on strike, another major hit besides any losses incurred because of the work stoppage. Those costs could have ripple effects on the wider economy.   

There’s no way to know how many workers would be emboldened to strike, given the promise of four weeks of unemployment benefits. Currently, some unions maintain strike funds to help workers through such actions. But with this bill, those costs could be shifted and shouldered by the state’s unemployment insurance fund.

This bill is too costly and there are too many unknowns. It would alter the management-labor landscape in the state by exploiting an important benefit for unemployed workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and extending it to workers who decide to strike. Lawmakers in the state Senate should reject the bill.