Thousands of Construction Workers to Rally at Indiana Statehouse

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Indiana construction workers by the thousands plan to rally for fair unemployment-insurance reform on Monday, April 27th at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. Their message: Working families can’t afford more benefits cuts.

“It has been said that when a worker falls on the job site, his pay stops when he hits the ground,” says Jay Potesta, business manager of Sheet Metal Workers Local 20. “Now, with some of these proposals we’re seeing, if he survives and gets laid off, he won’t qualify for unemployment.

“Now, not only would a man lose his wage when he hits the ground,” Potesta says, “but now that he’s off work, the Senate Republican plan would compound his misery by denying his eligibility for unemployment.”

At issue are proposals, in H.B. 1379 as passed by the Senate that would:

•    Deny unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to a greater number of workers.
•    Reduce benefit amounts to those workers who are deemed to be eligible.
•    Eliminate the safety net that UI benefits traditionally provide to unemployed workers.
•    Deny workers $550 million in benefits; the Senate Republican plan calls these benefits “waste, fraud and abuse.”

Workers from a wide range of skilled building trades will gather to tell legislators firsthand that these UI proposals are an assault on all working families and will be recognized as such.

Indiana’s union construction workers look forward to a constructive dialogue with legislators from around the state about sensible unemployment reform in the current session of the Indiana General Assembly.

These facts and more are explained in full at www.indianafacts.com, an informational website offered by Indiana’s union construction industry.

Source: Press Release