The Minnesota Senate overwhelmingly passed a 26-week extension of unemployment benefits for laid-off steelworkers on the Iron Range on Thursday.
The 62-3 vote sends the bill to the House, where majority Republicans want the bill to include a $271 million credit for businesses on their unemployment insurance premiums. GOP legislators say that the trust fund is overflowing and that businesses deserve relief.
Senate Republicans tried to amend the measure Thursday to include the business tax relief, but it lost on a mostly party-line vote.
Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, called the current steel downturn "unprecedented," blaming a glut of Chinese steel that he and other Iron Range advocates say is the result of illegal dumping. Tomassoni, whose district has borne the brunt of the layoffs that began last spring, thanked senators after the vote.
Gov. Mark Dayton tried to call a special legislative session late last year in part to deal with the unemployment extension, but DFLers couldn't come to an agreement with Republicans on the scope of the session.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, who also hails from the Range, grew emotional as he asked members to vote for the bill. He said this is the first steel downturn that wasn't timed to a national recession. "It's a different kind of downturn," he said. "But we'll be back. I know we'll be back."
Bakk said the unemployment extension would provide workers a bridge to get retrained in another industry, relocate or return to work once the mining industry revives.
The Iron Range steelworker benefit measure under consideration would cost the unemployment insurance fund $29 million.
The number of Iron Range mine workers is about one-fourth what it once was, due not only to foreign competition but also to improved efficiencies in the industry.
J. Patrick Coolican • 651-925-5042
