Bar is raised on jobless bennies
A 5.3 percent increase in Michigan's average weekly wage last year is boosting the amount of earnings a worker may need to qualify for state jobless benefits this year.

The alternative earnings qualifier allows jobless workers to qualify for unemployment benefits with fewer weeks of work. Generally, a claimant needs 20 "credit" weeks to qualify for state jobless benefits. With the alternative earnings qualifier, workers can qualify with 14 credit weeks, but they must also have gross wages exceeding 20 times the state's average weekly wage.

This year, according to the Michigan Unemployment Agency, the AEQ amount is $13,564.60, an increase of $683.40 over the 1999 qualifier. The new average weekly wage is $678.23, up $34.17 from 1999.

A credit week is a week of unemployment in which the worker earned at least $154.50. Credit weeks must be earned during the 52 weeks preceding the claimant's application for unemployment benefits.

The alternative earnings qualifier was created for industries like construction, where workers may have high earnings over a short work period.

State of the state 'long on gimmicks'
Michigan State AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney said Gov. Engler an "incomplete" grade on his annual State of the State message. He said the speech was more notable for what it didn't say than what it said.

"The governor's message tends to forget the problems of Michigan's working families and the poor," said Gaffney. "There are a lot of Michigan families scrambling from paycheck to paycheck who don't find the state of the state as rosy as the governor's speech."

Gaffney called on the governor to address the Working Family Agenda outlined by AFL-CIO unions last month. The agenda included increasing the minimum wage, lifting the cap on unemployment benefits, improving workplace safety and other bread and butter issues that make a difference in the lives of working families.

The governor's speech is "long on gimmicks, like providing laptop computers for teachers, but falls short on basic policy, like reducing class sizes," he said. "If teachers have to keep track of 35 students, they won't have time to plug in their laptop, let along use it for instruction"

Gaffney said other parts of the speech were flat-out insulting, such as the call to "empower" school principles. The Engler and the Republican-led state legislature last year eliminated collective bargaining for Detroit School principles. In his speech, the governor said "we took the first step with Detroit principles. Let's finish the job."

"If union busting is the 'first step' for the governor and Republican legislators, I hate to think what they mean by 'finishing the job,' said Gaffney. Perhaps they want to make Michigan a right to work state and completely eliminate collective bargaining for Michigan working families."

He said the state AFL-CIO will be keeping labor union members informed from now through the November elections about further attacks on collective bargaining.