Construction workers protest benefit cuts at statehouse rally Monday

INDIANAPOLIS – Thousands of union workers packed the Statehouse on Monday to protest proposed cuts in jobless benefits as lawmakers try to compromise on legislation to fix Indiana’s bankrupt unemployment insurance fund.

Republicans who control the Senate have proposed a plan that would increase employer taxes, reduce benefits for most jobless claimants and tighten eligibility standards. Democrats who rule the House have proposed higher employer taxes, but they oppose benefit cuts.

Lawmakers face a midnight Wednesday deadline for adjourning the regular session. Their biggest priorities are to agree on a new state budget and a solution for the unemployment fund.

Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, said Monday that negotiators on the unemployment legislation met privately over the weekend, and he was optimistic a deal could be struck. But he said benefit cuts remained a big “stumbling block” in negotiations.
The union workers who

attended the rally came from across the state, many of them riding in buses. They packed the north atrium of the Statehouse, crowded wide staircases to the third floor, and looked down from the railings on the third and fourth floors. Hundreds more remained outside.

Many carried signs. One read, “Don’t want to be a welfare recipient,” while another said, “Which way to the poor house.”

House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, drew cheers when he pledged to keep benefits intact.

“We will not cut your benefits,” he said. “You have worked too hard and you earned those benefits, and you will keep those benefits. We will continue to tell the other side to join us in helping you keep your benefits, and we think in the end they will.”

But lawmakers agree something must be done. Indiana’s unemployment insurance fund has been paying out hundreds of millions of dollars more in benefits than it has been collecting in employer taxes. The fund has had to borrow more than $700 million from the federal government to remain solvent.

Currently, the maximum weekly benefit is $390, while the average is $298.
Under the Senate Republican plan, benefits would be paid on a sliding scale that would decline the longer a jobless person is in the system. The maximum benefit of $390 would be increased to $424 for the first four weeks but ultimately drop to $310 in weeks eight through 26. Only those making maximum benefit would get a temporary increase.

The Senate Republican plan also would tighten eligibility standards.

One provision would allow companies that lay off employees for several weeks at a time every year to opt out of the system, so their laid-off workers would not get benefits. The companies also could choose to reimburse the state for nearly all the costs of benefits for their laid-off employees.

Democrats say that unfairly targets certain industries such as construction, in which workers often lose their jobs temporarily when a project ends.

David Packwood of Indianapolis, a carpenter who attended Monday’s rally, said he has been out of work at times and was most recently laid off on Friday.

“Even if I draw $351 (a week) in unemployment, my house payment is $1,700 a month, and then I have my gas bill and my electric bill,” Packwood said. “I want to work just as much as they don’t want me to be unemployed, but if the work is not there, it’s not there.”