TX Workforce COmm. tells employers how to avoid paying unemployment to qualified (ex) employees .

[elehhhhna]

Advice by state is no benefit for workers
By L.M. SIXEL Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle

(If they tell you you have an option to quit or be fired, regardless of your choice, you are still being let go & qualify for benefits - so they're coaching employers to be sneaky. This happened to me last year and I won benes at the hearing. Elena)

July 7, 2010, 10:39PM


Say you're the boss and you're going to fire one of your employees. Instead of booting the employee out the door, the Texas Workforce Commission recommends giving your employee the option to resign.

Employees given that choice are more likely to conclude they aren't eligible for benefits, said Jonathan Babiak, who spoke before 800 Houston area employers recently at a seminar sponsored by the Texas Workforce Commission.

It's not the employer's obligation to correct that misunderstanding, said Babiak, deputy director of appellate services for the Texas Workforce Commission in Austin. If employees resign, he said, "chances are they won't file a claim."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/sixel/7098451.html


The daylong presentation on state employment laws, which was sponsored by Tom Pauken, TWC chairman and the commissioner on the three-member body who represents employers, explained to company representatives how they can save money by challenging unemployment benefit claims.

[Ian David]

1. I've had two companies pull shit like that on me, and both times I was the only one to beat them.

It is very important that you document EVERYTHING, both before and after you're fired.

The hardest to deal with was a temporary employment agency.

They sell you on the idea that it's an opportunity to "test" different jobs to find what you like. But if they put you someplace, and you tell them you don't want to stay there (even if you say you'll stick it out for two more weeks) they blacklist you.

What this one agency did was start offering me crappy jobs far below my accustomed wages, so they could say that I "rejected suitable employment" and they could contest my unemployment benefits.

That case went all the way to a hearing with the DET, but I won.

[Cresent City Kid]

2. Texas wants people off the rolls, job or no job

Much like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, they have a set of rules just convoluted enough to cause confusion, and any slip up ends benefits. I was lucky to find a job after just two weeks, but I spent a month in the appeals process getting unemployment for those weeks. In my case, my employer was on my side and cooperated fully. I wonder how much Texas spent fighting to save the $250 they eventually paid me.

[ellenfl]

3. texas is a great state but its leaders, not so much. eom

[flamin lib]

4. Sons of Bitches, all of 'em. nt