State Sen. Mark Schoesler is criticizing the state Employment Security Department for failing to comply with the U.S. Department of Labor’s guidance regarding unemployment-insurance benefits for people who are on strike.
“While it’s good that ESD now is following the feds’ directive when it comes to striking workers meeting certain requirements about unemployment benefits, it is inexcusable for taking so long to comply,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville. “After receiving the directive from the feds last January, ESD ignored it for eight months before finally correcting its interpretation of the state law related to striking workers receiving UI benefits so that it complies with federal requirements.”
That law, created by the passage of Senate Bill 5041 by the Legislature’s majority Democrats in 2025, took full effect at the start of this year.
In a letter sent yesterday to ESD Interim Commissioner Martin McMurry, Schoesler wrote, “As you may be aware, the Department received a January 8, 2026 Guidance memo from the USDOL outlining state requirements of federal unemployment insurance compliance requirements as they applied to individuals during a strike. For your benefit, the Guidance is attached with this letter. That Guidance made it very clear that a state cannot exempt striking workers from UI job search requirements; that a state must actively monitor and ensure that job search requirements are being met; and that any state that does not do so jeopardizes its considerable federal UI funding.”
Schoesler’s letter to McMurry later reads:
“Despite these crystal-clear obligations outlined by USDOL, the Department’s August 20, 2026 communication to legislators indicates that ESD has been actively ignoring this Guidance by waiving the job search requirement for striking workers since January 1, 2026. This is in direct contravention of the federal Guidance issued just one week later.
“Further, I am unaware of any rulemaking that occurred regarding the waiver of job search requirements since the passage of ESSB 5041, and it is unclear under what authority, if any, the Department acted to waive the requirements of both federal and state law.
“It appears that there has been some form of recent notice from USDOL indicating that the Department is out of conformity with the federal law, as the Department has reinstated the job search requirements beginning August 23, 2026. While this is a necessary step, it begs the very serious question: why has the Department been actively and knowingly ignoring a federal directive for the last 8 months?”
Schoesler added that ESD’s mishandling of the situation comes at what he called a “critical moment” in the UI program.
Noting the agency is on the verge of instituting a solvency surcharge on employers to backfill low reserves in the UI program – to the tune of an additional $350 million in employer charges per year — the senator charged ESD the agency with cavalierly risking the awarding of ineligible claim benefits in flagrant violation of federal direction, calling it “simply inexcusable.”
Schoesler, a longtime member of the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, serves the 9th Legislative District, which includes Adams, Asotin, Columbia, Garfield, Lincoln, Spokane and Whitman counties.