Unemployment benefits should not be an open bar tab for employed striking workers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: John Kabateck, California State Director, [email protected]
or Tony Malandra, Senior Media Manager, [email protected]
SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 1, 2023—California’s leading small business association today thanked Gov. Gavin Newsom for vetoing Senate Bill 799, the worst piece of legislation to emerge from the 2023 session of the most anti-business Legislature in state history.
“SB 799 is one of the better examples of what’s wrong with our legislative system,” said John Kabateck, California state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s voice of small business. “A last-minute, gut-and-amend bill allowing little time for legislative scrutiny and public input, it was shamelessly hijacked and rushed to passage to score political points with striking Hollywood writers and actors. The governor’s veto was the right thing to do, but it only hits the pause button on a crisis that needs to stop.”
Only employers pay into the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, the money from which goes to pay workers laid off through no fault of their own, Kabateck reminded everyone. “The UI Trust Fund is one of the more important social safety nets California has for its citizens. The financial stability of it should be a top priority for every state policymaker. I think today’s veto is an acknowledgement that:
- “With the state more than $18 billion in debt to the federal government for loans it took out to keep California’s UI trust fund barely functioning, the Legislature’s own analyst calls the current state of the fund ‘structurally insolvent’
- “Business owners are already looking down the barrel of increased UI taxes in December
- “Opening up eligibility to those who willingly leave jobs they have to go out on strike would not only run counter to what the fund is for but also possibly bankrupt it for many years to come.”
Kabateck also said SB 799 was nothing more than politicians catering to labor, which makes up only 16% of California’s workers. The 84% of workers who are independent and the small business owners who employ many of them would have been left in the dust.
Keep up with the latest on California small-business news at www.nfib.com/california or by following NFIB on Twitter @NFIB_CA or on Facebook @NFIB.CA.
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For 80 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven association. Since its founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.
NFIB California
915 L. Street, Suite C-411
Sacramento, CA 95814
916-448-9904
www.nfib.com/CA
Twitter: @NFIB_CA
Facebook: @NFIB.CA
