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From: "Robert (Bob) Schneider" <r.schneider@dhittle.com> In response to Laurie Wermter, I am not an attorney and so I will defer to others more skilled in laws and litigation. My understanding is that in some states, if an employee is a "regular employee" who has a regular 40-hour work week, any reduction in hours on the part of the employer can allow for an unemployment insurance claim. One real world example I was given was a situation where there was a "snow storm" where an employer called employees and suggested that they not come into work and docked them part of their pay. Evidently, someone filed an unemployment insurance claim and received benefits. It changed the employers rating and resulted in a much larger expense than the money saved by docking some workers for the time they didn't put in. Again, I would expect that such laws may differ from State to State, but I would also anticipate that such differences might be complicated by all of the federal labor legislation that helps fund and bail out state unemployment insurance pools. I would like to take the opportunity to also point out that in many states, if an organization has high unemployment claims it adversely impacts the unemployment insurance rate that the organization pays to the state. As such, a state university could find itself paying much higher unemployment insurance expenses (all hours for all employees) and only realizing a savings in cutting a few hours for some employees. Again, I would anticipate that different states have different regulations. My suggestion for some of the furloughed faculty in different states is to file for unemployment insurance benefits, if you have a union see if they will help you fight for the benefits, and see where the dust settles. In theory there should be no shame in applying for benefits that the laws allow for due to a unilateral change in hours and change of the conditions of work on the part of the employer. Good luck to all during these troubled times. Bob
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