HARRISBURG (TNS) — A bill adding additional restrictions to unemployment benefits passed the Pa. Senate on a near party-line vote, with Democrats saying the measure was an ill-timed attempt to give employers more leverage over potential employees.

The bill passed 31-to-19, getting three Democrats and all of the chamber’s Republican majority on board.

The bill would add language to the state’s unemployment compensation (UC) law specifying that workers are ineligible for benefits if they refuse an interview or referral for a new job, or do anything else that “unreasonably discourages” a new employer from hiring them.

This would codify a policy that is already in effect, according to a memo from the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Michelle Brooks, R-Crawford County, given that the Pa. Department of Labor and Industry already considers sabotaging one’s employment the equivalent of refusing a job, which has long been grounds for the revocation of benefits.

The bill “is not intended to create a new policy. Rather, it is intended to clarify what is already the intent of the UC law, and what the department has indicated is already public policy,” Brooks wrote.

But Democrats voiced fears that the bill’s language could give employers additional grounds to claim that workers should be denied benefits, no matter how unsuitable or unfair the job being offered.

“These new conditions not only risk stripping away unemployment compensation benefits but can also pressure unemployed folks into accepting unsuitable positions,” said Sen. John Kane, D-Chester County.

Under a strict reading of the bill’s language, an employer could offer an interview to a worker they know is overqualified for the job, forcing the worker to risk losing benefits if they try to hold out for something better.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Pennsylvania’s labor market — like virtually every other place in the nation — has been advantageous to workers. Federal employment data shows that, as of March, there were roughly 1.7 job openings for every unemployed person in the commonwealth, giving workers a great deal of leeway to be selective in the jobs they take.

The bill passed Wednesday would allow employers to “manipulate the system to their advantage and cut off benefits,” Kane said, thus reducing workers’ leverage.

Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny County, described the measure as an “aggressively anti-worker bill.”