State Legislatures Attack Jobless Workers Rather than Create Jobs

Andy Richards on our Field Communications staff sends us this.

Many state legislatures have gone back into session this week and some state lawmakers aren’t looking to create badly needed jobs. Instead, the first item on their agenda is to attack jobless workers and their families.

The legislature in South Carolina is among them. This week, a senate panel approved legislation that would require unemployed workers to pass drug tests to get their unemployment insurance (UI), volunteer a minimum of 16 hours a week and look for only full-time employment opportunities after a certain period. The legislation will now go before the full Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee for review and could be approved as early as Thursday.

At the same time, the executive director of the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce, Abraham Turner, announced new changes to agency policies that would go into effect Thursday, including forcing jobless workers to take a job at minimum wage after receiving 20 weeks of unemployment insurance.

Gov. Nikki Haley—who has used much of 2011 attacking the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) and President Obama while she watched her approval rating hit bottom—said in October that she “so wants” drug testing for unemployed workers. Unfortunately for Haley, the claims she used to back up her arguments were debunked as exaggerations.

Extremist South Carolina politicians aren’t the only ones pushing these absurd attacks on working families. The New York Times reported 12 states proposed bills in 2011 and House Republicans also passed drug testing requirements for the jobless in December as part of their failed payroll tax cut bill.

As Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former editor of The American Prospect Mark Schmitt noted, this is part of a larger effort to “break down public support for extending UI benefits” and “shift the blame for joblessness to the jobless” like lawmakers did with welfare in the 1990s.

In Florida, a similar measure requiring welfare recipients to be drug tested was ruled unconstitutional—but that hasn’t stopped 35 other states from considering the idea.

Not surprisingly, the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council invited Tarren Bragdon, CEO of the right-wing think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, to present on the Florida welfare drug testing initiative at its November conference in Arizona.

So, watch out. Drug testing of unemployed workers and others still reeling from the Wall Street-created recession and policies that have only benefited the 1 percent may be moving through the legislature in your state soon.