Your testimony is needed for Senate Hearing on unemployment insurance
OSEA is backing two bills to improve unemployment insurance (UI) laws by removing unfair restrictions for some school employees. Extreme lags in processing UI claims in 2020 clearly showed how convoluted, inefficient and unfair the current system is. Senate Bill (SB) 495 and SB 496 would make vast improvements for educational assistants, food service workers, Head Start employees and educational service district (ESD) employees.
On Tuesday, Feb. 2, the Oregon Senate will hold a hearing on these two bills, and they need to hear from you! If you will be impacted by these bills, please share written testimony before Tuesday at the link below. Select the Senate Committee on Labor and Business, the meeting on 2/2/2021, and then either SB 495 or SB 496.
- Educational assistants working for school districts should share testimony for SB 495. CLICK HERE for sample testimony for SB 495.
- Food service, Head Start and ESD employees should share testimony for SB 496. CLICK HERE for sample testimony for SB 496.
The hearing will be at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 2. The livestream and video recording will both be available at the link below; click on the video camera icon (for livestream) or play button (to watch the recording) next to the link for ‘2/2/2021 8 AM’ in the top right corner of the page.
SB 495 and 496 will make a difference for many school employees, but we know that it will not cover all OSEA members. An OSEA-backed bill in 2019 already removed the ‘reasonable assurance’ requirement for custodial and maintenance workers. These bills bring us closer to OSEA’s goal of removing the unfair ‘reasonable assurance’ requirement for all school employees, which we continue to fight for.
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