Northstar News

The Northstar News - February 2004

February 2004 Meeting Speakers
John Ras (left) and Steve Williams

Recap of February 2004 Monthly Meeting

President Sharlene Smith CPP started our February meeting at 8am. As usual, she was ready to highlight this month’s topic of unemployment with a couple of her now-famous quote discoveries:

“The trouble with unemployment is that the minute you wake up in the morning you’re on the job” ~ Slappy White

“Cessation of work is not accompanied by a cessation of expenses” ~ Cato the Elder

“Unemployment diminishes people. Leisure enlarges them” ~ Mason Cooley

She also mentioned the annual conference for the Minnesota Treasury Management Association will be held on May 6^th. A link to information on the conference is available from the home page of our web site. Then she noted that we have several new job openings posted to our site in recent weeks.

Sharlene then spoke of our need for more volunteers to help carry out planned chapter activities for the year. She noted that the board is planning to introduce incentives to the membership for volunteering and that these would be communicated to attendees at the March meeting. She also mentioned that the board had completed our Chapter of the Year entry and submitted it to the National APA office. Sharlene noted that this is one of the items, along with National Payroll Week, that the chapter would like to have members help with in the coming months, as they are extensive projects that require collaboration throughout the year to prepare.

Vice President Karen Klein CPP took to the podium to introduce our guest speakers from TALX Corporation, John Ras and Steve Williams. TALX is considered the market leader in unemployment cost control through its UC eXpress™ product. John has been in the UC industry for over 17 years and services companies in all sizes and industries headquartered in the Great Lakes/Midwest region. He has given unemployment cost control presentations to other APA chapters in addition to over a hundred other organizations. Steve has been with TALX for over 5 years and has held positions in sales and marketing, management, and strategic partnerships. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri and obtained his M.B.A. from Southern Illinois University.

Steve was the primary speaker, and his experience with unemployment issues was readily apparent. He had an obvious passion for the topic, and one felt that he could talk for hours about it if given the opportunity. He started by conducting an informal quiz with the audience, asking the following questions:

Who was the President in office when the US Unemployment Compensation (UC) laws were introduced? (Answer: Franklin D. Roosevelt).
Who pays for funding the UC insurance program? (Answer: Employers!—everyone knew this one)
What is the maximum UC tax rate in Minnesota? (Answer: 10.6776%)

Click here for a link to the associated PowerPoint presentation Steve used (note: presentation opens in a new window). Below are some interesting additional comments he made during his presentation.

	Steve mentioned at the outset that the laws governing unemployment claims are slanted in favor of the ex-employee, and the agencies that handle unemployment claims do so in a manner that reflects this bias.
	To receive UC benefits, an ex-employee must simply state that they were either involuntarily discharged without good cause, or quit with good cause; and that they meet the ‘triple A’ test…that they are Able, Available, and Actively looking for work. Steve noted that this was relatively easy to claim, and very difficult to monitor, as the state agencies simply don’t have adequate resources to do so.
	Errors made by the state agencies either in overpaying claimants or incorrectly charging employers is commonplace. The state of Minnesota (MN) has even admitted to an error rate of 10% in overpayment of benefits.
	The average weekly UC benefit amount paid out in MN is 2/3 of the earnings average of all MN workers while on the job.
	MN is the only state in the union that does not permit employers to take credit for UC wages reported to another state, when an employee relocates to a work site in our state within the same calendar year.
	Responding to a UC claim notice from the state agency is voluntary in MN, however this is not the case in all states (Steve cited Maryland as an example).
	Accrued vacation pay paid out upon separation of employment will disqualify a claimant from collecting benefits for the time period this pay covers in about ½ of the states (not in MN).
	If an employee does quit, employers should get their resignation in writing. Otherwise they can claim they quit with good cause (i.e. a serious grievance that was not resolved by management), and the employer will have no proof to refute the claim. The result is that the ex-employee could collect benefits.
	In a few states, an employee who quits to relocate with their spouse is considered to be voluntarily separating with good cause, and even they are eligible to collect UC benefits!
	Employers normally cannot protest a UC claim by an employee on the grounds of poor performance. The agency position is that the employer is a fault for hiring the wrong person for the position.
	Employers cannot set their own probationary periods for reviewing a new hire’s performance, for the purpose of protesting a UC claim for someone discharged within that probationary period. Employers can, however, protest a claim for discharge within a state-imposed probationary period, if it exists. Eleven states have such probationary periods. For example, in Illinois it is 30 days. Minnesota’s is only the work time in which an employee earns $500.
	Employee tardiness is likely to be strong grounds for protesting a UC claim only if the employer focuses on what the call-in policy is and can establish that an employee didn’t follow it. Otherwise the case will depend on whether or not the reasons for being late were within the ex-employee’s control, with most weight given to what occurred in the final incident.
	Company rules that lay out acceptable/unacceptable employee behavior should be regularly given to employees or continually displayed in conspicuous places. Employees have won claims for UC benefits based on the fact that they weren’t aware of a rule stated in an employee handbook given out years ago upon hire.

The time flew by as Steve relayed all these facts in rapid-fire succession. He had to wrap up at 9:30 as Karen Kline made closing comments. She announced that the March meeting would be a ½ day session on Garnishments, and the community outreach project would be “Sharing and Caring Hands”. She asked prospective attendees to bring non-perishable food or personal hygiene items. At that point the meeting was adjourned.