Legislative Alert: March 7, 2025

President's Message

SUPPORT UNEMPLOYMENT FAIRNESS FOR EDUCATION AND 
HIGHER EDUCATION EMPLOYEES 
S5623 C. Ryan/A5860 Valdez

Federal law allows states to authorize non-teaching education employees at schools and colleges to collect unemployment benefits between academic years, semesters, or during extended weeks off but only in cases where employers do not provide “reasonable assurance” that these workers will be able to return to work after the break.

Educational employers can provide reasonable assurance simply by sending a letter to their workers or even verbally telling them that they will have a job when the next term begins. The reality is that the jobs too often are not available, due to budget cuts, enrollment declines, academic scheduling changes, and other factors that can affect course offerings and staffing.

This can apply to administrative staff, clerical, adjuncts, teaching aides, food service, transportation, janitorial, and other non-teaching jobs necessary to operate and maintain education facilities. If reasonable assurance is offered, but the job does not materialize in the next term, these workers will have often gone for weeks or months without pay or access to unemployment benefits.

In addition to being patently unfair, this causes recruitment and retention problems and disrupts continuity of service. This legislation will require employers to do a better job of notifying their workers of the reasonable assurance standard, ensure that the offers are genuine, ensure that there are not unreasonable contingencies for return to work, and that the pay and other terms and conditions of employment are comparable to the previous position.

This bill would provide better oversight of the process and allow DOL to make determinations about eligibility for unemployment on a case-by-case basis, rather than simply accepting a blanket form letter as compliance with the reasonable assurance standard.

Mario Cilento, President

Upcoming Meeting

LABOR LOBBYISTS MEETING 
Monday, March 10, 2025, 1 p.m. 
This event will be located at the Albany office of the NYS AFL-CIO, 100 South Swan St. Albany, NY. 
Assemblymember Harry Bronson, Chair of the Assembly Labor Committee will be our guest speaker. 
This meeting is for labor representatives only. Please RSVP to Nagma Singh at [email protected]