Empowering Striking Workers Act of 2025
The Empowering Striking Workers Act of 2025 would expand unemployment insurance (UI) eligibility to include individuals who are employed but unable to work due to a labor dispute. It adds a new category to the Internal Revenue Code: if a person is involved in a strike, lockout, or related dispute over terms, tenure, conditions, or representation (even if they are not in a direct employer–employee relationship), they would be eligible for UI benefits as if they were unemployed beginning on the earlier of four dates: 14 days after the strike began, when a lockout begins, when permanent replacement workers are hired, or when the strike/lockout ends and the individual becomes unemployed. The bill also amends the Social Security Act to remove the requirement that such claimants must be available to work, thereby exempting them from the standard work-availability rule. In short, it widens who can receive unemployment benefits during labor disputes and removes the usual “able and available to work” condition for those particular claimants, potentially increasing UI costs and altering how states administer benefits during strikes and related disputes.
Key Points
- 1Creates a new unemployment benefit eligibility category for individuals employed but unable to work due to a labor dispute, including disputes over terms, tenure, conditions, or representation, and even indirect effects of such disputes.
- 2Benefits begin no earlier than the date that is the earlier of: 14 days after a strike begins, the start of a lockout, hiring of permanent replacement workers, or the end of the strike/lockout with the individual becoming unemployed.
- 3Broadly covers disputes regardless of whether the disputants are in a direct employer–employee relationship.
- 4Amends the Social Security Act to remove the work-availability requirement for these claimants, so they do not need to demonstrate they are able and available to work while the dispute is ongoing.
- 5Implications for costs and administration: would expand UI costs and require state unemployment agencies to implement and manage these new rules.