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California governor rejects bill to give unemployment checks to striking workers (thehill.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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[–] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Unemployment is paid for by employers. Paying unemployment to striking workers is in effect forcing employers to keep paying their employees even though they're not working.

Keep in mind that California is an at-will employment state.

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  • [+] 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Right to work states are anti union.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    Here's the AFL-CIO's take on right to work AFL-CIO

    I used to be a union member in a right to work state and we had no union contract or protections until a democrat majority was voted in to the state government and passed a law allowing public safety unions to collectively bargain a contract with our employer.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    forcing employers to keep paying their employees even though they’re not working.

    That's the whole fucking point of unemployment. The insurance rates are paid by companies, but it's not their money to direct as they please for their own benefit. They'd very much tell ex-employees to go fuck themselves if they could, but they're forced to pay into the fund that supports them.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    My point is that it's coercive and will drive businesses out of the state.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Regulation is coercive (and good). Businesses aren't maintaining safety standards and supporting their out-of-work employees out of pure altruism. The real objection for businesses is not that unemployment rates might be marginally higher (people are just regular unemployed way more often than they're striking), it's that this increases worker power.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    But when you're paying striking workers to strike, you're incentivizing them to never compromise as long as the benefits last, which would be up to 26 weeks. Besides being unable to afford it, the state would start to see longer strikes and businesses moving out. I feel dirty for saying it, but this time Newsom was right.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    Unemployment isn't endless, isn't 100% of your pay, and doesn't allow you to take other work. It's still always financially better to go back to work. This is exactly the bullshit conservative argument against having unemployment at all, "it makes workers not want to work".

    And yes, more monetary support for striking workers would increase worker power, I already said that. It wouldn't necessarily cause long strikes, but it would make employers unlikely to be able to starve out a strike. That's a good thing. Corporate/worker power is so amazingly out-of-balance that strikers are basically always in the right. Maybe with more power they could eventually get to the point where it would be abused, but currently anything that biases things towards workers is good.

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