HOUSE PASSES JOBLESS BENEFITS BILL

Friday, June 13, 2008

(PAI)HOUSE PASSES JOBLESS BENEFITS BILL

By Mark Gruenberg

PAI Staff Writer

            WASHINGTON (PAI)--It took two tries and a lot of parliamentary maneuvering, but the Democratic-run House on June 12 finally passed a bill lengthening jobless benefits in most states from their present 26 weeks to 39 weeks, and to 52 weeks in states with unemployment rates of at least 6%.

            The 274-137 vote included 225 Democrats and 49 Republicans for the measure, while all 137 foes were from the GOP. Republican foes contended that not all the states in the U.S. needed the longer jobless benefits, while the Democrats pointed out that the national unemployment rate leaped 0.5% in May to 5.5%, the largest one-month increase in 22 years.

            The June 12 vote came after a large last-minute lobbying blitz, led by the AFL-IO and including AFSCME and SEIU. It also came after a June 11 vote where House Democratic leaders tried to jam the bill through with little debate--to quickly get it to the Senate and anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush--but needed a two-thirds majority for their rush. It garnered a 279-144 tally, failing by three votes.

            The extended jobless benefits also are in the bill funding Bush’s war in Iraq--which was pushed aside for the stand-alone jobless benefits bill. But Bush has already vowed to veto any Iraq War bill that has anything in it other than money for his war. That threat, if upheld by enough GOP votes, would doom the jobless benefits there, too.

            “The economy is in free fall and working people are struggling. The share of all the unemployed who are jobless more than 6 months is 18%, and there are two jobless workers searching, per every job available,” declared AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel in a telephone press conference when the fed launched its last-minute blitz on June 10. Samuel called the economy--including a sharp rise in May in the jobless rate--“a toxic brew” for workers and their families.

            The bill would have made the longer jobless benefits retroactive to all workers who had exhausted their benefits starting last November. Samuel said that every month, starting in January, some 200,000 more workers had lost their benefits, reaching the end of their 26 weeks.

            But the key roadblock, said Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) who joined the press conference, was getting enough Republicans to defect to override a Bush veto. What Bush needs to sustain a veto is one-third of those voting, plus one. On the June 11 vote, he got one-third plus three. But on the June 12 vote, he got only the one-third.

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