New York May Use Unemployment Insurance to Subsidize Strikes

In New York, leftism and corruption reach their apotheosis and blend together so it hard to say where one leaves off and the other begins. For example, leftist politicians and unions, working in sync as usual, are on the verge of usurping unemployment insurance and using it to subsidize strikes, rather than as emergency assistance to those who are jobless through no fault of their own.

Even in New York, strikers have to be out of work at least 8 weeks before they can receive unemployment benefits…

But on May 1, New York’s state Senate voted to let strikers get benefits one week after walking off the job—essentially putting them on equal footing with those who are laid off.

May 1, the communist holiday. Some coincidence.

If Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs this bill, he’ll effectively be using New York’s unemployment-insurance program to subsidize union strikes, upending the balance of power between workers and management.

That would force employers to pay people who refuse to work. Yet again we see that leftism is where tyranny and insanity overlap.

Subsidizing strikes will of course produce more strikes, adding to the dysfunctional business-hostile climate that has the productive class bailing out of New York.

The subsidy, like all pernicious things inflicted by Big Government, would grow:

New York is already increasing unemployment benefits, scrapping its $450-a-week cap in favor of a formula set to rise each year until 2026, when recipients will get up to 50% of the state’s average weekly wage, which is currently about $1,401.

Staying in business while paying people that much to march around with picket signs instead of working won’t be easy.

This would save Big Unions a fortune. That’s where the corruption comes in.

Many unions provide members with strike benefits to make up for lost wages… U.S. labor unions have paid out more than $149 million in strike benefits in just the past three years, federal records show.

Letting strikers collect unemployment benefits would relieve unions of much of those costs, freeing money up for other purposes—such as campaign contributions.

It is still possible for employers to escape from New York. But an idea this bad can’t escape the attention of Bernie Sanders for long. Once he demands this be imposed on the national level, the other Democrat candidates will launch into their usual me too chorus.

On a tip from Varla.

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