Labor wants unemployment revised
OLYMPIA – Two years after lawmakers approved a business-backed tightening of the unemployment insurance system at 4 a.m. in the final days of a legislative session, labor groups are pushing to undo some of those changes.
Their main focus: permanently increasing benefits for seasonal workers, many of whom rely on unemployment to survive after the construction season, harvest time or school year is over.
“In 2003, we made some humongous concessions,” said Bob Abbott, with the Washington and Northern Idaho District Council of Laborers. “We had people that lost their houses, had power shut off, down here fighting for compromise last year.”
They got that compromise last year, when lawmakers temporarily reverted to an average of the two highest quarters of a year to determine benefits, instead of the three quarters approved in 2003. Making that change permanent is one of several proposals outlined this year in Senate Bill 6885.
“It’s not that I choose to depend on unemployment,” Phil Jack, a faculty member at Green River Community College, told lawmakers Monday. “It’s just the way it is.”
The state can afford the change, proponents say, because Washington’s unemployment insurance system is taking in more money than it’s spending.
Businesses groups are resisting, saying that the changes would slowly draw down the state trust fund that pays unemployment claims. That drawdown would hasten if another economic slowdown hits, they warn.
“What we’re doing in this bill is we’re slowly spending our trust fund, slowly spending our savings account,” said Mellani McAleenan, a lobbyist for the Association of Washington Business. That, she said, makes likely a big unemployment tax increase in the future.
“For our industry, it will mean lower worker benefits and increased employer costs,” said Cliff Finch, a lobbyist for Washington Food Industry, a trade group. “The bill increases weekly (unemployment) benefits for higher-paid construction workers at the expense of UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) grocery workers.”
According to the Washington Policy Center, Washington’s maximum weekly unemployment benefit – $496 a week – is one of the highest in the nation.
Labor groups maintain that there’s plenty of money in the system to make the better benefits permanent.
“This bill does what it’s supposed to do, which is to restore the benefits to a level at which the workers can survive,” Abbott said.
“The trust fund is doing unexpectedly and surprisingly well,” said Karen Lee, head of the state’s Employment Security Department. The 2003 benefit cuts saved money, she said, partly because they dramatically pared back the number of workers who qualify for unemployment benefits, from 49 percent to 29 percent. She estimates that the bill would actually cut employer payroll taxes by $443 million more through 2014, even with increased benefits.
The bill narrowly passed the Senate last week and is now being considered by the House.