On April 24, 2023, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation further expanding the circumstances under which striking workers can collect unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. This followed legislation Governor Murphy previously signed into law in 2018 allowing striking workers to collect UI benefits under a variety of different circumstances never before allowed under New Jersey’s Unemployment Compensation Law. The continued expansion of unemployment benefits for workers engaging in a strike against their employer uses state funds to subsidize labor disputes and may negatively impact the state’s economy.

Quick Hits

• A recent New Jersey enactment has expanded the conditions under which striking workers may collect UI benefits.
• The law has decreased the waiting period before UI benefits may be paid from thirty days to fourteen days, among other amendments.
• The law took effect on April 24, 2023, and applies retroactively to all UI benefit claims filed on or after January 1, 2022.

The new law does the following:

• First, it decreases from thirty days to fourteen days the waiting period “following the commencement of unemployment caused by a labor dispute before which UI benefits may be paid.” In addition, the law now provides that benefits must be paid to claimants immediately, even during the fourteen-day period, if replacement workers are hired to take the positions of the claimants, whether or not the replacement workers are purported to be “permanent.”
• Second,...

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