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In response to the recent news of companies threatening to fire employees for refusing the COVID-19 shot, State Senator Nathan Dahm, a Republican from Broken Arrow, has filed Senate Bill 1157 to expand unemployment benefits.

In a statement, Sen. Dahm said:

“The failures of this current administration didn’t effectively kill our economy. So now we see they are trying to force healthy people who want to work out of the workforce to further strangle our economy while paying other people not to return to work.”

The bill would expand unemployment benefits for Oklahomans who are fired or placed on unpaid leave for their refusal to get vaccinated.

“The leftists in the federal government and corporate boardrooms are waging a class war against the people of Oklahoma,” Dahm said. “They have completely ignored the science of natural immunity as they march towards their goal of total compliance or total destruction of the lives of those who refuse to comply.”

Under current law, those employees who have been terminated from their job are looked at on a case-by-case basis to determine if they are eligible to receive unemployment benefits. SB 1157 would require those benefits to be provided beginning Sept. 1, 2021.

“The alternate reality of leftist lunacy land is that they would pay people to stay home rather than return to the workforce while simultaneously trying to force out those who actually want to work,” Dahm said. “Those front-line workers who were considered heroes last year are now getting kicked to the curb by domineering forces and are having to face the real probability of loss of their entire income, potentially decimating their lives. Unemployment benefits should be paid to those who lose their jobs at no fault of their own, not to those who would rather sit on a couch than get back to work.”