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Show Demo Controlled Utah House Passes Quartet of Measures Concerning Labor j Although unable to see eye-to- eye on the controversial H. ,B. (38 (repeal of the Right to Work law) the Democratically control-5 control-5 led Utah State House of Repre- sentatives this week passed in a bundle legislation concerning i labor and unemployment insur-i insur-i ance by a wide majority. i ' Passed by the House Tuesday and referred to the Senate for ' action were House Bills 140, 206, ' 228 and 229, covering respective-1 respective-1 ly: Increases in the length of time an employed worker can ; draw benefits; House of Work in Smelters; Increased Benefits' ; in Workmen's Compensation; and Increased Benefits in Occu-; Occu-; pational Diseases. ; Speaking before the House in support of H. B. 140, Rep. Ernest , Dean (D-Utah) Majority House. of the public! Rep. Dean, named on each bill as author and co-sponsor, said, j "Under the benefit formula con-j con-j tained in the law now a man can work 19 weeks and get 15 weeks of benefits, and this type of worker files year after year. He j is, by established custom, a seasonal sea-sonal worker, whereas the man who worked for a full 52 weeks could only get 26 weeks of benefits. bene-fits. This latter type if an individual indi-vidual is a less frequent claimant. claim-ant. He claims benefits only in years of recession or in times and places of unusual unemployment unemploy-ment problems such as those created by special local conditions condi-tions for example, the mine shut downs in good times that occur in such places as Park City, Eureka and Price. The ob jectives of the sub-committee working on this legislation has established as the "devising of a formula that would pay the right man in the right place at the right time." With only minor opposition the measure passed the house on a 43 to 12 majority, with eight members being absent. H. B. 206, relating to Hours of Work in Smelters, received an even greater majority, pulling 51 ayes, 4 nays with 9 absent. H. B. 228, concerned with Increased In-creased Benefits under Workmen's Work-men's Compensation, passed 46 ayes, no nays, 16 absent. H. B. 229, concerned with Increased In-creased Benefits relating to Occupational Oc-cupational Diseases, passed with 46 ayes, 1 nay, 17 absent. Leader, told House members of the concern felt by both employers employ-ers and employees as well as the public over inequities in the present law. Representatives of all three groups had offered assistance as-sistance in ironing out problems peculiar to the state in reference to seasonal employees as compared com-pared to steadliy employed persons per-sons who become the victim of unusual circumstances such as the recent recession or the closing clos-ing of businesses due to unusual circumstances rather than seasonal sea-sonal layoffs. This category includes in-cludes the mine shut downs in good times that occur in such places as Park City, Eureka and Price, Rep. Dean said. Explaining that the most important im-portant change contained in the measure would be a change in the length of r time an unemployed unem-ployed worker can draw benefits, bene-fits, Rep. Dean told the House that maximum weekly benefits would not be affected by the bill but that the extension in duration of the payment period would result in possible increase of up to $400. Maximum weekly benefit as of July 1, 1959 is $40 per week. With only a slight fractional increase in the costs of financing this new benefit formula, management man-agement and employers apparently appar-ently found the small boost no hindrance and agreed to the provisions. pro-visions. Another provision of the new law would be the designation of school training classes which an unemployed worker might attend at-tend without losing his benefits as has been the case in the past. Serving as members of an Advisory Ad-visory Council who worked on the measure were Employer representatives rep-resentatives Richard W. May-cock, May-cock, Ames K. Bagley, Charles T. S. Parsons, Thomas C. Clark, J. P. O'Keefe and Weston Hamilton; Ham-ilton; employee representatives R. S. Roberts, Ormond Konkle, Otto Horner, LaMar D. Gulbran-sen, Gulbran-sen, Arthur Mullett and Wm. A. McLeese; while David Holther, Mary Woolley and W. F. Edwards Ed-wards served as representatives |