ATLANTA — A group of workers camped out in front of the Georgia Department of Labor in Atlanta overnight into early Friday morning, protesting the state's unemployment services and decision to end receiving the $300 federal weekly supplement early.
The group arrived Thursday and planned to stay until 10 a.m. Friday morning. One of the workers, Nicole Fears, said part of their goal was to show the dysfunction of the state's unemployment insurance system.
Part of what they did Thursday was help unemployed workers reset their pins so they could access their accounts.
"Lot of issues, the system is broken," said Fears, who was laid off last year from her job as a flight attendant after 26 years. She added she felt the dysfunction was "by design."
"The process of actually applying for unemployment has been disastrous for all Americans," she said. "We're calling for reform, we're needing Congress to step up to the plate and look out for these workers."
The unemployment issue has been a contentious one since Gov. Brian Kemp and state Labor Commissioner Mark Butler announced that Georgia would be opting out of the $300 weekly supplement.
That policy takes effect on Saturday.
The Republican leaders have argued it is necessary for getting workers back on the job, particularly at small businesses struggling to staff back up post-pandemic. Gov. Kemp ahs said the federal supplement is "encouraging people not to get into the workforce."
Labor activists and workers have criticized it as a coercive move, forcing workers who lost their jobs in the pandemic and have subsisted through it on unemployment to take lower-wage jobs than they had before in order to keep getting by.
This week, a group of residents also sued the state over delays in unemployment payments.