Disputing Unemployment Claims??

[RiverRat1]

Do you not have unemployment insurance? Or do I not understand how to works?

Seems to me if you have ins it wouldn’t be worth fighting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So many claims and insurance skyrockets.

[ethic1]

So many claims and insurance skyrockets.

I gotcha


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BigRed323]

Only 30 days? Do you guys have any sort of probation period established?

[DeadEyeB]

you wont be on the hook for much of this FYI. They base how much you pay out in unemployment based on how much they make over a period of time.

That being said just fight it all the way to the phone hearing with a judge. Good chance that employee will forget or not make it to the hearing and they immediately disqualify themselves when they do that.

I have won every claim I've fought basically because of this. They ignore the mail they get and totally forget to come to the hearing lol.

[MooseontheLoose]

So much of the success of overturning the ruling depends on the mood of the officer and the documentation you have in order. If your company has good policies, they were followed, and things were documented appropriately, you can generally be successful in the hearing overturning the ruling. The burden of proof lies with the employer though, so if policies weren't followed, or there are gaps in documentation, it'll be hard to over turn the initial ruling.

Other states, particularly New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico, will rule in the employees favor in most situations. I've had harassment claims overturned in those states (ruling in favor of the harasser), even though I had things in order on my side. Very frustrating. It's situational, but I won't even bother doing the hearing in some of those areas anymore. Just not a good use of time when they will award them the decision anyways.

Like DeadEye said, if you get to the hearing stage, lots of times they don't even show up. I've had people call into the hearing before from the road before with the windows down. The hearing official got frustrated with them, ended it early, and ruled in our favor. People will also try to say everything under the sun to get something to stick (discrimination, FLSA, hostile work, worst manager I ever had, etc.). When the hearing gets to that point, most of the officials see right through that and will rule in your favor anyways.

Texas is getting more difficult than it used to be to win those decisions. Good luck.

[Sleepy]

All of our guys work out of state. I recently fired two guys for being in a company truck after drinking and around midnight, they lost a $30K piece of equipment out of the back of the truck. I didn’t hear of it until that next morning and I fired them immediately and put them on a greyhound back home. Yep, you guessed it. They are being awarded unemployment. How was I supposed to give them a drug/alcohol test at midnight. The next day was Saturday. Nobody hardly open. Only documentation was what another employee state he saw and the guys driving admit they were in the truck and admit they lost the price of equipment and were too **** drunk to even know what direction they were going and couldn’t go back to find it. You almost have to have a video of them doing it and then show TWC the handbook that states we don’t allow drunk driving in company vehicles.

[chongo]

TWC has become very particular over recent years about contesting UC.

Outside of gross misconduct, TWC wants employers to be able to show the employee had been warned and that the employee knew they could lose their job.

If you don't have any documentation it makes it difficult. However, being that he was only with the company 30 days, very little if any would be charged back to you due to how they calculate the base period to determine wages/earnings.

The goal when responding to a UC is to show the company had a policy/procedure, the employee knew about it, violated the policy/procedure, the employee was warned and understood how to correct the issue(s) and what the consequences were if they didn't. When you respond, your position statement should include copy of policy/procedure violated, copy of handbook acknowledgement signed by employee, copy of any training employee completed which is relevant, copy of disciplinary write ups, manager or witness statements as well as termination documentation. Throw everything you have at TWC.

I've probably written over 5k UC responses in the past 15 years for clients and you really need to be able to check those boxes to come out ahead against TWC. But, if you do these things and are proactive, and the termination was for misconduct (your documentation needs to begin with misconduct not poor performance, which is typically the result of misconduct) you will be in a much better position to argue against benefits being awarded. If you lose, appeal.

[Hunter Dan]

The TWC has gotten out of control and I have gone rounds with them over cases. In this situation though even if they find in the employees favor it should not come back on your company due to the short time he was employed. I have had this senario and they awarded benefits but took them from the previous employers account and not mine.

[mjhaverkamp]

We have a 90 day probation period before they could apply for unemployment.