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Utah Senate President:  Cut Unemployment Benefits

April 26, 2011

Members of Salt Lake City Local 354 work on project for Cache Valley Electric.

When the Republican-dominated Utah state senate voted to turn down federal unemployment funds, Senate President Michael Waddoups told the Associated Press that rejecting the federal help was the right thing to do. He said:

People need to be weaned off the government paying for everything. When the unemployment money runs out, the motivation is really there then to get a job. 

Richard Kingery, business manager of Salt Lake City Local 354, who is a member of the state’s unemployment advisory board, says:

Waddoups has lost sight of his constituents and doesn’t understand the pain that unemployed workers are going through in Utah.

Nearly 8 percent of workers in Utah are out of work. Local 354 is suffering 20 percent unemployment. Despite the dismal situation facing so many workers, the state unemployment advisory commission deadlocked 6 to 6 on whether to accept federal funds.

Kingery and four other representatives from unions voted to accept the funding. 

Kingery says Waddoups exhibited even greater audacity by suggesting that workers may have to live with less and get used to not having as much money as they had before. He says:

His colleagues would never accept that kind of answer for themselves. In refusing federal dollars, they are taking a stand against what they call ‘out of control’ government spending by hurting workers in the state.

The Deseret News reported that the AFL-CIO’s Utah Working Families organization delivered a letter to Waddoups office asking him to apologize for his statement.

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