I work for a staffing agency and just had to do my first in-person appearance at an appeal for an unemployment claim hearing.
(I’ve done dozens of UE claim forms and documentation requests - this was just my first in person hearing).
I’m certainly not an authority - but if anyone has any questions about the process, what kinds of things you get asked, what kind of documentation they are looking for, or what kind of reasons for termination are considered acceptable/unacceptable in most instances - I’ll be happy to share what I know.
I can’t answer the money questions - those are from the gov’t. But I can give you some insight from the side of “The Man” if anyone is interested.
Note: I can only answer definitively about the state of North Carolina here in the USA. All other answers will be ymmv.
Is there usually a hearing involved as part of any unemployment claim? (The Spanish process only calls for an actual hearing if there are disagreements, so rarely).
The first “hearing” is usually done all on paper. Claimant requests unemployment (UE), agency sends request questionnaire to the corporate office, corporate office fills out the facts of why the person was let go. Agency clerk reviews the facts and decides either for or against the claimant getting UE benefits/money.
If the claimant is denied UE, they have the option to appeal - which usually results in a telephone hearing. In certain cases (like when a claimant requests a translator) - the hearing might be in person instead.
Sure - in this case, the claimant was on an assignment that was ended for insubordination/misconduct. Then he failed to maintain conduct with the agency to be placed on a new assignment.
He claimed he was not insubordinate and that he was falsely terminated.
I work for a staffing agency too! I’d love to compare notes with you. I usually do phone hearings but have been to my fair share of in-person appeal procedures as well. It completely blows my mind how many of those things go in favor of the former employee, even when we have overwhelming evidence that they walked off the job, voluntarily quit to take another job and subsequently got fired from that one, were incompetent, had attendance issues, etc. I don’t know what is up with these judges, but they seem to be all “power to the people” or something, even thought the claimants don’t want to work and when they did work, were a hot mess.
An employee got reprimanded on a Friday and then came in on Monday, handed in a written resignation, then left.
A few months later we get notice that he filed for unemployment. We tell the folks at UE that he quit and send a copy of the resignation letter as proof.
He appeals, alleging that he was psychologially brutalized and intimidated. The case goes to a judge and we have a hearing.
Granted, the boss can yell and scream when he gets mad and this happened on the employees last day.
E-mails were our friend, we seemed to have one that countered every allegation that the employee made.
He said he had to seek psychological treatment and medication because of the work environment. We had an e-mail dated after he was hired and before he started work telling us that he forgot to mention when he was hired that he would need every Friday afternoon off for a standing psychological therapy appointment.
In response to the allegation of intimidation, we had tons of e-mails in the “I’m going to be late, I need tomorrow off, tommorrow is my second cousin once removed’s birthday and of course I won’t be working that day, I got tickets to a ball game and won’t be coming in today” vein…our point was “does this guy sound intimidated?”
The judge’s questions were mostly about the confrontation the day before the employee resigned…the questions were in the nature of "how close were you standing to each other, did anyone make any threatening gestures, etc.
He got his answers, I was impressed that the ex-employee was totally honest even though the answers didn’t help him. We won, the guy didn’t get unemployment.
I guess the important thing I learned about the hearing is that it was an opportunity for the judge to get the questions he had after studying the appeals answered. It was not an opportunity for everyone to “tell their side of the story” and make their case.
I can not stress enough how important it is to document, document, document. I kept every email when I was working - even if it meant setting up a separate document archive server on the network. Just because you never know when an email will come in handy to prove a point.
If the gentleman I was contesting wins, it will, unfortunately, be probably because he doesn’t speak English very well. Even though he signed documents and had conversations, he can continue to claim he didn’t understand what we were saying or that the translator wasn’t good enough.
The company pays the unemployment. Even though you apply for the funds through the government, they are only the administrator. Every company has to pay in unemployment based on the percentage of claims per year.
Well, that implies that the employer has to pay out an individual’s compensation.
Instead, we pay up front via the taxes (which are loosely based on the employees’ salaries, but are capped so we pay taxes only on the first 8000 dollars).
We had a household employee (nanny), whom we let go after something like 10 years, because we couldn’t afford to pay her any longer. We did everything “above the table” including paying unemployment taxes. I gave her a letter attesting to the fact that there was no misconduct; she filed; I received a request for corroboration from the UI people (which I filled out and returned); she collected.
The taxes I paid while she worked for me were a fraction of what she collected, I’m sure - we paid something like 80 dollars a year total, because the state taxes are experience-based and (until then), I’d never had a claim. That 80 includes both the federal (based on the first 7000 dollars) and state (based on the first 8000 dollars).
I’ve never been asked to pay the state for what she collected, beyond those taxes.
Now, if I were to hire another employee, my rate would be a LOT higher - like 480 a year per employee - because of the experience.
All in all, a large enough employer might pay enough in taxes to cover its employees especially if they have a lot of churning. That in and of itself might be a sufficient incentive to fight every claim. I have no idea how high my rate might get if I had a lot of layoffs.
I am an attorney currently working at a tiny boutique firm whose entire business is devoted to representing employers in unemployment claims. We are a local business (in Chicago), but have clients all over the U.S… We handle cases all the way from the moment the claimant walks into the unemployment office to the final administrative appeal. I.e. we won’t take it to civil court, but our clients are free to do so.
I know a lot about this stuff.
In almost every state in the U.S. the first step is handled by a low-level bureaucrat who interviews the claimant, makes a half-hearted inquiry in the direction of the employer, and renders a poorly-written often nonsensical decision. From the time the former employee claims until this decision comes out can take a couple of weeks. From that point, the “losing” party has the right to appeal. The appeal will always be granted, and results in a hearing. In my state (and actually, in a lot of states now), all hearings are performed over the telephone. A big part of my job is acting as counsel at these hearings, examining witnesses, entering evidence, making objections, etc.
It depends on the employer. Most employers are what you call “taxable” employers, which means that the wages they pay their employees are taxed, and those taxes are paid into a state-run fund. The employer’s tax rate is based on a ridiculously complicated formula that takes into account how many claims are being paid to former employees. (Mama Zappa is an example of a taxable employer.) So those employers want to win unemployment hearings so their unemployment tax rate stays low. Other employers are what you all “reimbursing” employers, which means that every unemployment claim they “lose,” they pay dollar for dollar. The claimant gets paid by the state, and the state bills the employer however much was paid out. Most employers are taxable. In my state, you’re only a reimburser if you’re a school, a church, or a charitable organization of some kind. Or if you fit an obscure exception.
If anyone has any questions about the process, I’m happy to oblige.
Well this is a very useful board and thread. Today my husband and I received 2 letters from the division of employment security in Missouri. Apparently our nanny, whom we had to fire due to negligence toward our 6 month old, is applying for unemployment. I don’t know why, but this actually really ticks me off. Now we’ll be paying in at a higher rate since we are considering hiring a different nanny. We’ve been paying into the system since 2006 when my son was cared for by a fabulous woman who moved away.
Our letters indicate we are a base period and last employer…LUCKY US!
Question: is there any point in contesting this? From what I’ve heard, the states generally side with the employees. Never mind that she left our baby alone in a running car…(witnessed) and then left her in a different room TWICE crying her head off while she (the nanny) sat in the TV room watching God-knows-what??! I “caught” her leaving the baby in the high chair (not strapped in) in the kitchen the first time and gave her verbal remediation. The very next day she did it again.
She is 77 yrs old so she also collects retirement social security.
Again, any use in contesting this or will it be a total waste of my time? Also, she did sign a written contract stating she would bathe the infant (NEVER DID), take her for walks (NEVER DID), etc…
Thanks for any advice.
It couldn’t hurt to contest it! Document everything. As I noted upthread, the cost difference can be pretty significant. Even if you lose, you’re no worse off than you would be if you didn’t bother.
At 77, she’s obviously not capable of providing even minimal childcare. I wonder she’s ever been able to find a job! At the least, you can pan her if she’s dumb enough to list you as a reference.
Do tax rate increases still affect a previous employer?
Some years (decades) ago, I resigned from a job to take a “better” one. That one laid me off after a month. Unemployment benefits from that were simple; I got them. But, as part of my relevant work history included the previous job, they were queried, and they threw a fit. “He quit!” they said. “Absolutely true”, I said.
I still got benefits, due to the last job, but one of my former co-workers told me that my previous employer’s rate went up simply because they had employed me in the time frame that my benefits were calculated from. That didn’t make sense to me.
I got your PM. Again, I’m happy to answer questions about the process, but am a little leery about giving personalized legal advice over a message board. I can, however, tell you a few general things about your situation.
First, I’m not your lawyer, which is lucky because I’m only a member of the Illinois bar, and not the Missouri bar. Nearly every state in the union permits out-of-state lawyers to represent you for unemployment cases, and many permit non-lawyers to represent you too. But Missouri is an odd duck in that your representative (if you have one) must be a member of the Missouri bar. We take our Missouri clients all the way through the process, but are not allowed to represent them in hearings.
Second, you’re correct that Missouri, like pretty much every other state, favors claimants pretty heavily. But that does not mean you shouldn’t contest claims.
The general standard is that a claimant is ineligible for benefits if they were discharged for misconduct. The biggest thing that will trip you up is that “poor job performance” is not considered misconduct, since misconduct must be intentional, and you can be terrible at your job because of circumstances beyond your control. Like the fact that you’re old and forgetful.
So if you want to win, you’ll have to convince the claims adjudicators and judges that your employee was discharged not because she was bad at her job, but because she intentionally did one particular thing that was against your “company policy.” That particular thing is the “final incident.” If you do a hearing, the judge will spend all his time examining that final incident, and won’t really care about all the terrible things the employee did before that. If the final incident could be considered accidental (you left the metal press running too long because you were distracted by something, you fell asleep at your post, you were late because your car broke down), then the employer will lose. But if that final incident was intentional (you stole a widget from the production line, you disobeyed a direct order from your boss, you were late because you wanted to watch the baseball game) then the employer will win.
Prior instances of misconduct are usually only relevant to prove that the employee had notice of what constituted misconduct. You put a widget in the wrong box once? Perhaps you didn’t know it was wrong. You put a widget in the wrong box four times, and were given a written warning each of the first three times? You absolutely knew you were violating company policy, and have no excuse. But if the prior instances of misconduct are unrelated to the final incident, they will be mostly ignored. They might be useful to demonstrate that the employee was on notice that his job was in jeopardy, but that’s not technically a requirement in most cases.
One of the most important things when going through this process, as with most legal processes, is to pay careful attention to deadlines. You probably have ten calendar days to respond to the initial claim. The system, again, is extremely employer-unfriendly on these deadlines, and missing a single one will make you lose. While employees are given significant leeway, employers aren’t.
mmb1, I hope the above generalities are helpful. Honestly, if I were you,* I would file a protest. If the final incident was leaving the baby unattended in a car, that seems pretty intentional to me.
*I’m not, and again, I’m not your lawyer. I’m just some schmo on a message board.
Calculating employer tax rates is a black magic, and honestly, they fiddle around with that in a different part of my company so I don’t know that much about it. I can tell you that the general rule is that a voluntary quit (“VQ”) for a reason not attributable to the employer is a total bar to that employer being chargeable. But most states have a weird exception for your situation: where someone VQ’s to take another job, works a very short time for that new job, and is then laid off. In my state, I believe (not 100% sure here) that no employer is chargeable. The person still gets benefits, but neither employer is charged.
The more common scenario where (in my state) nobody is charged, is where somebody quits for medical reasons. It’s not technically a VQ, since it wasn’t voluntary. But it’s not attributable to the employer either. So the person gets unemployment benefits and the taxpayers of the great state of Illinois foot the bill.
Thanks Randy, appreciate your message, sorry to reply late, was in Chicago with husband and kids. I sent you a PM. By the way, I totally understand that you can’t be my lawyer and I would never put you in that kind of position. I’m an internist and I would never dispense personalized medical advice over the internet without being able to talk to, examine, review hx on a patient…So, I really do “get” where you’re coming from. I appreciate all of your help! Sincerely, Mona