Bill Extending Unemployment Benefits to Strikers, Vetoed by Newsom, Reintroduced by Senator Portantino

Senator Anthony J. Portantino, who represents Pasadena, on Tuesday filed SB 1116, which aims to extend unemployment insurance benefits to workers engaged in strikes.

The bill, sponsored by the California Labor Federation and jointly authored by Senator Maria Elena Durazo, seeks to address the financial challenges faced by striking workers and their families. It reintroduces Portantino’s striking workers bill which Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last year.

“I think it’s important to bring this bill back and send a strong message to the women and men who were on strike that we recognize the impact it had on their family’s ability to pay rent and put food on a table,” Portantino said. “I am grateful to the labor advocates with whom we are working closely on this effort.”

The legislation aims to rectify the current prohibition that denies striking workers access to unemployment insurance benefits, despite their loss of income and financial hardships endured during strikes. Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, leader of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, said it was time to end this exclusion, as other states have done.

“Unemployment Insurance is an earned benefit for workers, created to ensure they don’t go hungry, bankrupt, or lose their homes because they are temporarily out of work,” Fletcher said. “There is no reason to punish workers forced to go on strike by excluding them from this protection.”

SB 1116 builds upon previous efforts, including SB 799 introduced in 2023, which sought similar benefits for striking workers. SB 799 passed the Senate and State Assembly but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, citing concerns about increased unemployment insurance debt and its potential impact on employers.

The California Chamber of Commerce also opposed SB 799, labeling it a “job killer” and urging its veto because it would have forced employers to, in effect, pay their own employees to strike.

In filing SB 1116, Portantino said the right to strike to improve working conditions, wages, and address other issues in collective bargaining is codified in law for workers in the public and private sector. When workers go on strike, they lose income, deplete their savings, struggle to pay rent and mortgages, and accumulate debt, but existing law and case history currently prohibits them from being eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

“This prohibition is a major obstacle for many workers to overcome to improve their working conditions,” Portantino’s statement said.

The statement added SB 1116 would provide another lifeline by allowing striking or locked-out workers to be eligible for much-needed unemployment insurance benefits for the duration of the dispute. Unemployment insurance is funded through payroll taxes paid by employers’ contributions. In California, employers pay payroll taxes on the first $7,000 of employee pay – the lowest “taxable wage base” allowed under federal law and one of the lowest in the country, according to Portantino’s statement.

Portantino said the states of New York and New Jersey allow striking workers to collect unemployment insurance and have recently expanded eligibility. Portantino said SB 1116 is co-sponsored by the California International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Council, the California State Legislative Board of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, Communication Workers of America District 9, and the Entertainment Union Coalition, among other organizations in California.