Supes back CA effort to give undocumented workers a safety net 

The Board of Supervisors today unanimously adopted a resolution supporting a state-wide bill to establish unemployment benefits for undocumented workers. 

If passed, the Safety Net for All Workers Act (SB 227), sponsored by Senator María Elena Durazo, would provide undocumented workers who have been laid off with “$300 per week, for up to 20 weeks.” It would give undocumented workers a safety net for the first time in California’s history. 

“It is fundamentally unjust that undocumented workers have no access to unemployment benefits that they themselves have contributed millions to,” said supervisor Hillary Ronen in a protest before the board meeting, attended by dozens of workers and worker-rights advocates. Undocumented workers, who contribute to local communities, she said, should be treated the same as documented workers.

Payroll taxes on undocumented workers contribute $485 million a year  to California’s Unemployed Insurance system, according to the Safety Net for All Coalition, a group of more than 120 organizations across California that seek to expand safety-net programs for excluded immigrant workers.

“We cannot take people’s money, take people’s taxes, take people’s labor, and then deny them the very benefits and rights that they deserve and that they have earned,” Supervisor Shamann Walton said at the same protest.

Juan Mendoza, an unemployed worker and member of Trabajadores Unidos Workers United, described in Spanish the kind of economic hardship he experienced after the restaurant where he worked closed in the midst of the pandemic.

 “I am here speaking out, so that SB 227 is able to be passed, and so that us, as an immigrant community, get compensated for the hard work that we do,” said Mendoza.

SB 227 is not the first state bill of its kind. Last year, a similar piece of legislation, AB 2847, was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom on the grounds that “the bill needs further work to address operation issues and fiscal concerns,” following its passage by the legislature.

Programs similar to SB 227 have been adopted in New York and Washington, according to Jose Ng, an immigrant rights program manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action.

Ana Alfaro, a domestic worker and member of Mujeres Unidas y Activas, described her unemployment experience during the pandemic as “emotionally taxing and stressful.” She lost seven houses where she worked at the beginning of the pandemic, making it almost impossible to sustain her family. “During a national crisis, we were excluded from all of these benefits,” she said in Spanish. 

Ng, from Chinese for Affirmative Action, talked about how frustrating it was during the pandemic to tell undocumented workers that they did not qualify for any state or federal aid “ simply because you’re undocumented.”