U.S. Labor News Roundup

Week of May 13, 2013

Discipline and Punish: The New Unemployment Benefits ‘Reform’

In 2011-12, 16 states cut both the amount of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and the number of weeks they are available. States also adopted stricter requirements, demanding that unemployed workers accept even low-wage job offers.

Under Tennessee’s new law, for instance, laid-off workers may hold out for jobs that pay the same as their previous position for only 13 weeks. After that, they must accept any job that pays at least 75 percent of their previous wage; the cutoff drops to 65 percent after 38 weeks.

UI benefits average $300 a week—the equivalent of less than $16,000 per year—so there is already plenty of incentive to find work. But once someone takes a low-wage job, it is extremely difficult to keep looking for the higher-wage job that will serve the worker better in the long run.

More important from employers’ point of view, forcing tens of thousands of workers to take low-wage jobs floods the market with job-seekers and drives down standards, by the law of supply and demand.

In 2003, Georgia pioneered a program that encourages UI recipients to volunteer for unpaid work in private companies for up to six weeks, 24 hours per week. Pennsylvania calls the unpaid work “skill enhancement.”

For now, the programs are voluntary. But it’s easy to imagine future ones that might offer extended UI benefits only to those who have proven their dedication through unpaid labor.

In both states, there is no requirement that employers hire participants at the end of the program, no prohibition on firing paid employees and replacing them with unpaid recipients, and no requirement that employers provide any actual training. Instead, work itself is considered its own training.

The architects of these programs insist that what the long-term unemployed need most is learning to address people as “sir” and “ma’am” and not to “talk back”—not “skills” that would give them bargaining power in the labor market.

Paid Sick Leave, At Last?

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Will the U.S. join the rest of the world and guarantee workers paid sick leave?

A bill in Congress is stuck, but momentum is building. Five cities and Connecticut have passed sick leave provisions since 2007. Active campaigns by unions and worker groups exist in 20 other jurisdictions, including Massachusetts and Illinois.

Employer groups are resisting, led by the National Restaurant Association.

The measures passed have been measly by international standards, generally capping leave at five to seven days per year. Most exclude small businesses.

In many low-paid jobs, it’s hard to take a sick day, paid or not. “The concept does not exist: there is no sick time,” said a Michigan cook.

“You come to work either way. If you don’t come you don’t get paid, and if you stay off too long you get fired. That’s it.”

Compared to that in other countries, U.S. policy on paid sick days is cruel and unusual. In 136 countries, national law says employers must provide more than seven paid sick days a year.

In 51 countries, you get more than 75 percent of your pay while you’re sick, while in 31 countries workers get full pay.

In the U.S., there is no national law on sick pay, and 40 million people work in jobs with no paid sick days at all, including around 40 percent of the private sector workforce.