Nearly 60,000 members of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild are still on picket lines trying to reach new deals with movie studios, but California will not send them unemployment benefits. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday vetoed a bill inspired by high-profile shutdowns in the Hollywood and hospitality industries.
Newsom, a Democrat, has said he supports workers and often benefits from union campaign contributions.But he said he vetoed the bill because the state’s use of funds Pay unemployment benefits By the end of this year, its debt will be close to $20 billion.
“Now is not the time to add costs or take on significant debt,” Newsom wrote in his veto message.
The state fund used to pay unemployment benefits already has 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 unemployment soared.The fund has also been troubled Lots of scams The state spent billions of dollars.
The bill would allow workers who have been on strike for at least two weeks to collect unemployment benefits from the state, up to $450 per week. Typically, only workers who lose their job through no fault of their own are eligible for these benefits.
The union argued that the number of workers on strike for more than two weeks was too small to have a significant impact on the state unemployment trust fund. Democratic state Sen. Anthony Portantino, the bill’s author, said of the 56 strikes in California over the past decade, only two lasted more than two weeks.
“This veto tips the balance further in favor of businesses and CEOs and penalizes workers for exercising their fundamental right to strike,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, executive secretary and treasurer of the California Federation of Labor. “At a time when public support for unions and strikes is at an all-time high, this veto is incompatible with American values.”
New York and New Jersey are the only two states that allow striking workers to collect unemployment benefits.
The California legislation is an attempt by Democratic state lawmakers to support Southern California hotel workers and Hollywood actors and writers who have been on strike for much of this year.this Writers’ strike ends on September 26but the other two are still ongoing – meaning many workers have been without pay for months.
In addition to the debt, Newsom’s administration said the fund did not raise enough money to pay all the benefits owed. The money comes from taxes that businesses must pay to each worker. But the tax only applies to the first $7,000 of a worker’s salary, an amount that hasn’t changed since 1984 and is the minimum allowed under federal law.
Since then, the California Legislature has increased unemployment benefits twice, once in 1989 and again in 2001.
Newsom’s administration expects welfare payments to exceed tax revenue this year by $1.1 billion.Independents say this is the first time this has happened during a period of job growth Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Lawmakers could try to pass the law anyway, but California governors have been overridden by vetoes for decades.
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