"he vetoed this bill because the fund the state uses to pay unemployment benefits will be nearly $20 billion in debt by the end of the year.
The fund the state uses to pay unemployment benefits is already more than $18 billion in debt. That’s because the fund ran out of money and had to borrow from the federal government during the pandemic, when Newsom ordered most businesses to close and caused a massive spike in unemployment. The fund was also beset by massive amounts of fraud that cost the state billions of dollars."
The reasoning and background, if anyone is curious
That’s a really weird take for someone who looks to be trying to run in the ‘28 race. Why this stance over all the others you’ve taken? This would have been a grand slam policy along with the others he’s approved this minth
How is it weird? Unions will endorse him no matter what he does because he’s running against the red team, might as well fuck them over.
Also, he’s a lib, so…
Some people seem to think that Democrats need to actually do things to keep the unions loyal, like American politics is about trading favors and negotiating alliances. In reality all the Democrats need to do is point at the Republican boogeyman and the unions fall in line.
I agree. The dems need to show more to the unions. But if they do that then they lose the donations from the bigger corporations. No matter what it’s a lose lose game for the workers
A labor party would definitely have less money to work with, but more volunteers and their volunteers would more enthusiastic.
It would get ugly, though. America’s government doesn’t like labor parties.
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.
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.
My point is that it’s coercive and will drive businesses out of the state.
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.
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.
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.
If only the bloods and crips were pro-worker instead of pro-wealthy class.
Newsom, a Democrat, says he supports workers and often benefits from campaign contributions from labor unions. But he said he vetoed this bill because the fund the state uses to pay unemployment benefits will be nearly $20 billion in debt by the end of the year.
Beyond the debt, the Newsom administration has said the fund is not collecting enough money to pay all of the benefits owed. The money comes from a tax businesses must pay on each worker. But that tax only applies to the first $7,000 of workers’ wages, a figure that has not changed since 1984 and is the lowest amount allowed under federal law.
