SPEEA-Supported Legislation Helps Striking Workers with UI Benefits

About 50 members of SPEEA/IFPTE Local 2001 traveled to the Washington state Capitol in Olympia in January to lobby legislators in support of a bill that would provide 12 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits to striking workers. In the weeks that followed, more than 500 union members sent emails of support to their legislators. The bill was approved by the state’s Senate on March 7, on a 28-21 vote. It’s now before the state’s House of Representatives.

Senate Bill 5041, which would grant unemployment insurance benefits to striking workers, was approved by the Washington state Senate and sent to the state’s House of Representatives for consideration.

The bill passed on a 28-21 vote on March 7.

“This was a major milestone for us, as supporters of the bill,” said SPEEA Legislative Director Brandon Anderson. “SPEEA members played a big role in getting it through.”

More than 500 SPEEA/IFPTE Local 2001 members sent emails to their state Senators asking them to support the bill, and about 50 union members spent a day at the Capitol in Olympia, urging their legislators to support it.

The bill, as approved by the Senate, would provide striking or locked-out workers with 12 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits after the first week of a strike.

The goal is to provide disincentives for major corporations to merely stall at the bargaining table, waiting for striking workers to exhaust their savings.

“These ‘stall and starve’ tactics are very common in labor negotiations,” Anderson said. “This bill would level the playing field and encourage companies to negotiate fairly from the start, rather than let strikes drag on, causing economic damage to workers’ families and the communities they live in.”

Boeing has rallied the Washington business community to kill the bill, Anderson said.

“We had a lot of support from our members to get the bill through the Senate,” he said. “We’ll need just as much support to get it approved in the House and sent on the Gov. Ferguson for his signature.”

SPEEA represents some 16,000 Washington state residents who work as engineers, scientists, technical workers, and pilots at the Boeing Co.