Striking workers could soon get unemployment benefits under bill House approved

KENNEWICK – The idea of going on strike was scary for Pearl Johnson, a room attendant at a DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. Even still, she and her colleagues knew that’s what they needed to do to bargain for a better wage.

Johnson and her co-workers went on strike last fall in a push to secure higher pay amid rising inflation. Then, two days before the strike, her significant other lost his job.

“And I was like, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” she said. “Reality really set in for me, for sure.”

Now Johnson is advocating for a bill working through the Washington state Legislature that would allow striking workers to receive unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for up to six weeks.

“In the future, if we should happen to go on strike again, knowing that this UI bill that we have is going to give me more of a security to fight longer if needed,” Johnson said.

Washington lawmakers on Thursday agreed to a six-week compromise on Senate Bill 5041; the original Senate bill floated a maximum of 12 benefit weeks, while the House proposed up to four weeks.

On Friday afternoon, the House approved the latest version of the bill on a 51-45 vote before sending it to the Senate.

Both chambers must approve the compromise before it can reach the governor’s desk. Gov. Bob Ferguson has not weighed in on whether he’ll back the measure.

Sine Die, when the 2025 regular session ends, is Sunday.

Unions and advocates argue that the bill is needed to help workers get by during the bargaining process. But critics fear that it could backfire, hurting both the state’s economy and workers themselves.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Marcus Riccelli, a Spokane Democrat and the bill’s prime sponsor, said Thursday that the compromise was a result of back-and-forth negotiations.

“This will be something that will allow for those conversations to happen,” he said at a committee meeting, “to tip the scales in a way that make them more fair, to make sure that our workers, particularly our lowest-wage workers, and the folks that I represent … get fair pay, good benefits and safe working conditions.”

State Rep. Suzanne Schmidt, a Spokane Valley Republican, raised concerns.

“If employers aren’t healthy, you don’t have workers. And when we don’t have healthy employers, we’re not going to have a healthy economy,” she said Thursday.

Stefan Moritz, secretary-treasurer with the hospitality-workers union UNITE HERE Local 8, told McClatchy that he thinks the bill would help to resolve disputes faster. Employers will know that workers have the confidence to take collective action, he said.

The economy isn’t “working for workers,” Moritz said. Wages haven’t kept up with rising rent, grocery, gas and medical costs.

Moritz views the bill as an essential tool in ensuring those who live paycheck to paycheck have more agency in making decisions and sticking together.

“I don’t think a hotel is going to close its doors because workers have unemployment benefits during a strike,” Moritz said. “That sounds ridiculous.”

But Elizabeth New, director of the Centers for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center, has been sounding the alarm.

New said the bill would let striking workers receive benefits from the unemployment insurance fund, which is funded by employers and supposed to be meant for those who lose work through no fault of their own.

Washington would be the third state to adopt such labor protections, behind New York and New Jersey, she said. The way she sees it, the Democrat-backed bill looks like a “union favor.”

“That’s my worry about this bill, is that we’re not understanding what it could do to the state as a whole, and just seeing it as, ‘Oh, these are my usual friends. I’ll go ahead and sign onto this legislation and encourage it along,’ ” New said. “And it could be a disaster.”

New said that the bill would effectively make employers pay workers not to work. She worries the legislation will turn the state even less friendly to business. Some companies in Washington, such as Boeing, have shown that huge strikes can spell massive economic consequences, including for the workers who didn’t strike, she added.

The SPEEA union, which represents Boeing workers, has advocated for the bill.

New said that if a union suggests a strike, it should also be ready to offer a wage replacement for its members. She asked: Why wouldn’t that be a union responsibility?

“I think this legislation will also encourage strikes,” she said. “Why would a union not choose to encourage a strike? They already do now with reckless abandon.”

Moritz with UNITE HERE Local 8 noted that receiving unemployment isn’t a full wage replacement. He also said that the union has built a strike fund over the years, allowing it to offer members modest support during a strike. Still, he said, that doesn’t come close to meeting folks’ needs.

“It doesn’t resolve the power imbalance and the precarious economic situation that people are in,” he said.

“This policy would simply help level the playing field. The workers have much less financial resources than the corporations that own and operate their hotels.”