I had a girlfriend that was fired some years ago. She said that her ex-employer fought her getting benefits tooth aand nail. Why do they do this? Does an unemployment claim raise Insurance rates for employers?
Thanks,
hh
Ordinarily, it’s because they pay into a fund that pays it out. Their assessment to that fund is figured actuarily, and in part based on how much is paid out for their ex-employees.
Why was she fired? In my experience, companies will typically only contest unemployment benefits if the former employee was fired for good cause, such as a theft or a serious breech of company policy.
As an employer WE have to pay for it. It’s somewhat indirect, but in the end, if too many people get unemployment, our rates will go up.
Also, sometimes it’s principles. We had one girl not show up to work over and over and over and over. We finally told her, that if she missed one more day of work, we’d let her go. She missed one more day and then filed for unemployement benefits after we fired her. She was granted them based on “…since we didn’t give her any WRITTEN warnings telling her she had to show up to work on the days she was on the schedule, she had know way of knowing that she actually had to show up on those days.”
We had another employee go on a bender for the umpteenth time. He just stopped showing up for work one day. We didn’t fire him (since he wouldn’t answer his phone), we didn’t even know he quit until the UEB stuff started showing up. (we won that case).
But really, wouldn’t you fight those.
Yes. It’s not the only factor, but an employer’s claims experience will usually effect its unemployment assessment.
See, e.g.
Knowing her, it must have been for cause, but I can’t recall. I wouldn’t put too much past her.
Thanks for all of the good help and info!
hh
An aquaintance of mine fired someone for stealing filet mignons from the kitchen, and he still had to pay out.
It’s not only fired for good cause, but it has to be very well documented. You have to give written warnings that explain what the employee did, and what will happen to them if they do it again. It’s a PITA, but you must remember, Unemployement is on the employees side, not the employers.
Heh. I’m reminded of a scene in a movie where a guy has been taping steaks to his body under his clothes and walking out with them at night, and one night his employer stabs the top of his thigh with a fork, proving his guilt. Anyone remember which movie that was?
Well, yes. But, I bet the employer at least TRIED to contest the benefits. That’s all I was saying; I didn’t mean to imply that they’d necessarily be successful.
This varies a lot from place to place. But it’s true that the side with the better documented case (in most cases, this turns out to be the employer) will win a contested unemployment claim.
We very rarely contest unemployment, and have only won once.
The most recent case we contested: The employee was laid off. After a week, he was called back. He said he had another job. A week later, he filed unemployment. We then tried to call him back to work again, since we still needed him. He refused, and was still able to collect unemployment for 6 months.
You contested it. Does that mean you requested a hearing when you received the unfavorable determination?
I’m wondering because I did a lot of unemployment hearings in Ohio when I was at Legal Aid there.
This is very true, every time I’ve had to let someone go, a full paper trail of their misdeeds has to be in place or you are going to lose at the hearing.
Everyone I’ve let go has tried to claim the benefits regardless of why they were terminated. It cost nothing for the ex-employee to try and if they win they get $$$. Can’t say I blame them.
That is my understanding, yes.
I only know of the case because the same guy came in and filled out an application a couple of days ago, and I got to listen to the ranting of the plant manager.
Interesting. IME, the determination stage was pretty error-ridden, and it usually favored the employee. At least back then, if a party “appealed” the determination, the case got sent to redetermination. Redetermination was a pointless exercise that confused everyone. Basically they had someone at the administrative level (maybe even the same person who did it the first time) look at the file again. I never saw a redetermination that modified the original determination. But the problem was that lots of people thought that was their appeal.
I would have clients come in telling me that they’d lost (or won) an appeal, when they would actually have simply had their eligibility (or in their case, ineligibility) redetermined. They would have to appeal again before the deadline in order to get a hearing.
Once we had appealed the redetermination, there would be an actual hearing. The hearing officers were all pretty smart and no-nonsense. I won’t say they favored the employer, but they all applied the rules very strictly. Most of my clients were not familiar enough with the procedure to have avoided losing the case on procedural grounds.
Many claimants would lose their claim at this stage because of procedural issues that they didn’t understand.
Of course, once the hearing was over, there was another layer of administrative appeal. After that the award could be appealed in the court system.
I’d be a little surprised if a case as clear cut as the one you have described could survive all of the reviews without being corrected. But just a little.
HA! I thought the same thing! I think it was* The Slums of Beverly Hills*, but I’m not certain.
I’m going to have to double check my facts. I don’t want to sit here claiming that I have them when I obviously don’t. If I get them before this thread winds down, I’ll post. Sound good?
I’d be interested, if you get a chance.
I remember a battle I had with a former employer for benefits quite fondly.
I had been instrumental in interviewing my future software engineering manager candidates and I reported that one in particular was egregiously unfit for the job. They hired him anyway. I believe they did so because the vice president he would be reporting to did not want a qualified, competent person who would make the vice president look bad in comparison.
So, instead of working for him (at least directly), I managed to find another department in the company to work for in a technically unofficial capacity. This worked fine for a while but then I received an email from a high-ranking individual between the new, lousy software development manager and the vice president demanding that I work for and report directly to the nincompoop. I replied to this person – and only him – why I didn’t want to work for the buffoon (in polite terms) and proceeded to review his incompetence and to list all the interview questions he failed so miserably. In outrage at my comments, he in turn e-mailed my reply to the idiot in question and every other manager in the company!
The next morning I received a message on my answering machine telling me I was fired (no cause given, but I would assume “insubordination”). When I applied for unemployment benefits, my former company refused and I appealed.
At the hearing, I had no documentation other than the email I had written (which both sides presented as evidence), but I did have some anecdotes about my own skills and professionalism that the personnel manager could and did not dispute, although she was quite livid about my chutzpa in asking for benefits. The administrative judge reviewed the data and happily awarded me benefits.
What really shined for me was that the judge told the personnel manager that she should “re-think which employee should have been fired!”
I don’t get it. Don’t you only pay unemployment for an employee while they are working for you? Is it not, in a way, part of their compensation for working for you? How can you contest something that has already been earned? If you’re going to contest unemployment benefits after firing somebody IMO you should explicitly inform applicants of that.