Senate bill would slash Missouri unemployment benefits to eight weeks

Current length is 20 weeks, one of lowest in nation

By SHERI GASSAWAY
Correspondent

Jefferson City, MO – The Missouri 2022 legislative session is in full swing and Republican politicians once again are on the warpath against working people with a slew of anti-worker bills, including one that would slash unemployment benefits to just eight weeks.

Missouri’s current 20-week limit for collecting unemployment benefits is already one of the shortest in the nation. The majority of states offer 26 weeks, but Missouri and seven other states provide for only 12 to 21 weeks. Notably, the seven others are all so-called “right-to-work” states.

‘DETRIMENTAL TO CONSTRUCTION WORKERS’
“This would bring Missouri down to the absolute bottom of the list nationwide,” said Missouri AFL-CIO President Jake Hummel. “It would be detrimental to the state’s construction workers, who are sometimes laid off for three months at a time because of a winter slow down.”

Sponsored by Senator Mike Bernskoetter (R-Jefferson City), SB 665 would change the length of unemployment benefits based on Missouri’s average jobless rate. If that rate is at or below 3.5 percent, benefits would last only eight weeks. Higher unemployment rates would increase benefits up to 20 weeks. Missouri’s unemployment rate was at 3.3 percent in December 2021.

‘RIGHT-TO-WORK’ BACK ON TABLE
The Missouri AFL-CIO is tracking more than 100 bills in the House and Senate this session that would weaken worker protections. Over 20 bills are on the “critical” or “priority” list for the Federation, including three bills seeking, yet again, to impose so-called “right-to-work,” which prohibits clauses in union contracts that require all workers covered by the contract to share in the costs of collective bargaining, either as dues-paying members or by paying a smaller “fair share” fee.

By forcing more unions to provide services for free, “right-to-work” laws seek to financially cripple unions in their ability to organize, negotiate, and advocate on behalf of union members and their families, resulting in lower wages and fewer benefits.

Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected “right-to-work” (Proposition A) in 2018 by a better than two-to-one majority – 67.5 percent to 32.5 percent – following an extensive initiative petition drive to put the issue to a public vote.

INITIATIVE PETITIONS UNDER ATTACK
Instead of heeding the will of the voters, Republicans in the Missouri Legislature are now attempting to make it harder for voters to get issues on the ballot. (See story on Page 1.)

Several GOP-sponsored bills this session would make it harder to amend the Missouri Constitution by changing the initiative petition process, such as was used with 2020’s Constitutional Amendment 2 requiring the state to expand access to Medicaid after years of the state legislature refusing to do so.

On Feb. 7, the Missouri House gave preliminary approval to one of those bills. It would require support from at least two-thirds of voters to amend the constitution as opposed to the current simple majority.

“That’s the same process used to place Proposition A to repeal ‘right-to-work’ and other grassroots, citizen-led measures on the ballot,” Hummel said. “It’s an attempt to silence people from having their voices heard at the ballot box and stop them from directly participating in democracy.”

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mike Henderson (R-Bonne Terre), also would increase the number of signatures needed to put a proposal on the ballot from eight percent of voters who cast a ballot in the last gubernatorial election in six out of Missouri’s eight congressional districts to 10 percent of voters in all eight congressional districts.

MECHANICAL CONTRACTOR LICENSING ACT
Two other bills on the Missouri AFL-CIO watch list – SB 867, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Koenig (R-Manchester) and HB 2050, sponsored by Rep. Nick Schroer (R-O’Fallon) – would establish a Missouri Statewide Mechanical Contractor Licensing Act requiring companies – regardless of size – to have only one licensed mechanical contractor on staff to perform work on heating and cooling systems, boilers, water heaters, piping, gas systems, solar energy, plumbing, refrigeration, medical piping, fire suppression and other mechanical systems –– a change akin to requiring hospitals to have only one licensed doctor on staff.

“It would clearly benefit non-union, low wage contractors and basically loosen licensing requirements for them,” Hummel said. “Our union mechanical building trades have strict licensing requirements in place to protect workers and the general public against substandard practices.”