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

“The failures of this current administration didn’t effectively kill our economy,” Dahm said. “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.