WGA & SAG-AFTRA Join Labor Organizations Calling On California To Grant Unemployment Benefits To Striking Workers

deadline.com:

SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America West are among more than 20 labor organizations lobbying for passage of a bill pending in the California legislature that would make striking workers in the state eligible for unemployment benefits, as they are in New York and New Jersey.

SAG-AFTRA has now been on strike for 40 days, and the WGA for 113 days. The bill – SB 799 – is sponsored by Sens. Anthony Portantino and Maria Elena Durazo and Assemblyman Chris Holden, who are looking to fast-track it.   “SB 799 is critical legislation for all working Californians,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator. “Striking workers deserve the same protections that are afforded to other employees when they are not working.

No one wants to go on strike – it’s an action of last resort and workers who find themselves in this position should not be penalized by withholding of state unemployment insurance benefits just because employers refuse to make a fair deal.” “For nearly four months, the studios’ strategy has been to starve writers into accepting a contract that does not fix what the business practices of the studios and streamers have broken,” said Meredith Stiehm, president of WGA West. “Years of eroding compensation and working conditions have left writers with fewer resources than ever to weather periods without work.

Unemployment insurance for striking workers is a commonsense solution to keeping workers afloat and local economies healthy.” “It is already law in New York and New Jersey,” she said, “and has been utilized by our union siblings in the Writers Guild of America, East.