The White House supports the right to strike. Whether or not those strikers should get unemployment pay is another question.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) vetoed a bill over the weekend that would have given striking workers unemployment benefits, part of a wider pivot to the center that has sparked rumors of a presidential campaign.
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During Monday’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked if President Joe Biden supports unemployment pay for striking union members.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not answer directly.
“What I can say is the president certainly supports collective bargaining,” she said. “He supports that workers should be able to ask for fair pay and fair benefits. That is something that he supports because he supporters, certainly, the right to strike.”
But, Jean-Pierre added, “I’m not going to get into the particulars of what Gov. Newsom signed. What I can say is the president is always supporting union workers and certainly working people.”
The bill that Newsom vetoed was strongly supported by Hollywood unions and other California labor organizations, but he said in his veto message that it risks draining the state’s unemployment trust fund. That fund is already nearly $20 billion in debt, the Los Angeles Times reported.
New York and New Jersey are the only states that allow people on strike to get unemployment pay, and it doesn’t appear that anything will change soon on the federal level.
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The reporter also asked if Biden’s visit to a United Auto Workers strike last week risked prolonging the stalemate.
“He went to an active picket line to show his solidarity for union workers,” Jean-Pierre said. “He was proud to do that. That doesn’t change what the president has said many times. He supports collective bargaining, allowing the negotiations to continue with all parties, and making sure that they have the ability and the right to ask for fair pay and fair wages.”
