This year’s proposal to allow striking workers to choose not to work but require their employers to pay them anyway was moved forward Friday by the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards. Senate Bill 5041 now awaits a full vote in the House. It received the approval of the Senate March 7 in a 28-21 partisan vote.

The bill would allow striking workers to collect three months of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. Those benefits come from a fund financed by employers. Businesses involved in a strike also would be on the hook for restoring dollars striking workers collected. Serious.

Since the House approved a similar bill last year, I have no doubt this bad bill is on its way to the governor’s desk. Gov. Bob Ferguson should veto it, instead of adding to the ways Washington state is becoming an unattractive place to live, employ and work. That will hurt everyone — businesses, consumers, workers, and the state economy as a whole. Business-unfriendly laws such as this send jobs away from Washington state and supply workers with fewer choices or lower wages. 

Strikes also often result in workers who are not involved in strikes being laid off from damaged businesses: Boeing is a recent example where non-striking workers were not helped by the victory a union and some of the company’s workers say they achieved. If striking workers can be given wage-replacement dollars meant for people who lose work through no fault of their own, the UI fund could become unreliable or even more costly to build over time.

By trying to help a minority of workers, or their unions, lawmakers will hurt the majority of workers in our state.

Proponents of the idea to pay striking workers are all about what they see as an unfair income gap. For example, the hearings have been stacked with Starbucks’ baristas and union supporters claiming everyday workers would love to make as much as those in Starbucks’ leadership. They feel entitled to more of the company’s success. Rather than finding different work for which they feel fairly compensated, some workers supportive of 5041 expect to be paid while striking. 

Boeing machinists, who won a favorable contract with Boeing after badly bruising their employer last year, were not the poster children for this bill. Starbucks workers paint the picture advocates want. By the way, using a calculation from the Employment Security Department last year, paying about 30,000 workers the max benefit under this year's version of the bill for three months would cost the UI fund more than $367 million dollars. We dodged a Boeing-sized bullet in 2024. We might not in the future.

This bill also misguidedly continues to include public employees who strike, even though public employee strikes are prohibited. That will likely cost school districts. 

We don’t know how much this will cost the state, its workers or its businesses. The policy is too new in two other states that have it to know too much about experience elsewhere, and the Employment Security Department says its fiscal note only tells how many employees will be needed to process new claims. The fiscal note does not look at what could happen. Agency estimations are also still based on only four weeks of UI pay, instead of 12, and the fiscal note chosen to accompany the bill doesn't include the reality of large strikes in Washington state.

Unions should pay for a strike fund 

The appropriate party for paying workers during a strike is their union. Each union member pays their union hundreds of dollars every year. They can maintain a strike fund that allows union members not to work and still be paid. Asking employers to fund strike pay is not appropriate.

The Employment Security Department (ESD) told me strike pay from unions will not rule out unemployment benefits for striking employees, should this bill pass. That means it is possible that striking workers could receive a replacement wage from their unions and the state’s UI fund. This could definitely prolong strikes.  

 This bill is dangerous. It will encourage more work stoppages. It could result in fewer available jobs and cost all workers and state residents, not just businesses.