Striking public employees in Oregon would become the first in the nation to be eligible for weekly unemployment checks under a bill heading to the Senate floor for a vote.
Senate Bill 916 would open up unemployment benefits to all striking workers, whether public or private sector. Those payments are currently available only to employees who are out of work through no choice of their own.
But while New York and New Jersey are the only states that currently have similar provisions on the books, those states bar public employees from striking. Oregon does not have an across-the-board ban — and as SB 916 passed out of committee on a party-line vote Thursday, a bill to expand the right to strike to transit workers was set to be introduced in the Senate…