The goal is to ensure that workers receive the maximum assistance for coverage during labor disputes.
California is aiming to ensure that workers in the state will receive the largest possible health insurance subsidies throughout labor disputes. This move is in response to a number of recent incidences when workers have been told they are losing their coverage throughout strikes and other similar disputes.
Workers are having their coverage cut off or are threatened to lose coverage if they don’t return to work.
For instance, earlier this year, Chevron workers in California testified that hundreds of the United Steelworkers Local 5 from the Richmond, California refinery had their health insurance coverage revoked during a two-month strike.
Similarly, thousands of Stanford Health Care nurses were informed in April that if they didn’t return to work during their week-long strike, they would lose their coverage.
Over 300 Sequoia Hospital workers in Redwood City, California were issued a similar message when they went out on strike last July in response to stalled contract negotiations.
Withholding health insurance benefits is a common labor dispute tactic to return workers to their jobs.
This tactic is commonplace because it is an easy way to pressure workers to give in to the demands being made by management. Workers are scared to lose their coverage and of the financial struggle that could be associated with the loss of their plans. That said, lawmakers in California are aiming to provide strikers with support to help them to be able to provide themselves with coverage throughout a labor dispute, allowing negotiations to proceed without such pressures.
Assemblymember Jim Wood (D) is wrote the California bill and is hopeful that it will help to dissuade employers from using tactics such as revoking health insurance benefits during labor disputes. The strategy involves allowing private-industry workers to receive the maximum possible subsidies for purchasing a plan through Covered California, the official state marketplace. The bill will go into effect in July 2023 and was sponsored by the California Labor Federation, the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
