Hi,

I have a part-time employee who was hired part-time and continues to work part-time that recently filed for unemployment benefits and we were charged 98% against our experience rating for this employee. My question is, because she was hired part-time, she had no reduction in hours and had no reduction in wages, why are we required to pay 98% of her unemployment benefits? I called the DOL office and got the run around...someone actually hung up on me for asking. I don't think this is a ridiculous question. We were sent a letter after I put my question in a letter to the DOL...it basically stated that because we were her primary employer, we were required by law to pay. Can you explain this to me? I really don't understand. I was told by the DOL office, "it's called the law" and "go to the library and check out the book that explains it."

Just to give more information: this employee has been working with us since 2007 and just started receiving unemployment benefits at the end of 2008.

Wouldn't be the first time I've seen dumb MD laws regarding UI. Did they cite the applicable law?

Can you file a protest/waiver of charges request?

The DOL letter just states, "Per agency records charges can not be removed because your company is the claimants primary employer. Charges are in order."

I actually did submit an appeal. It came back with the same ruling. Then, just being curious, I asked to see what wages she was reporting to their office and noticed some huge discrepancies. I sent a protest with the employee's earnings statements showing her actual wages. They finally responded stating "the claimant committed a fraudulent act within the meaning of section 8-1301 of MD UI Law. Benefits are denied as provided by section 8-1305..." And so the employee was required to pay back all benefits. So, in the end it was (or should be...I haven't seen anything yet) credited back to our experience rating, but not for the reason you would think. So, I was basically just curious if you knew why she was approved for these benefits in the first place. I've never seen this done before???

She probably had a full-time job from which she was terminated and the state may have originally thought that YOU were her full-time employer and had just reduced her hours. Or not. Who knows? :confused:

Keep up on the charges being reversed and let the state know if a reasonable amount of time has gone by and the records still aren't corrected.

Thank you so much for your reply. I will definitely keep checking on those credits. And now that I know this site exist, you will probably be hearing from me a lot!! :o