by Concerned Sister
(MA. USA)
Hello, My sister’s husband is a mason for a company located in New Hampshire. They currently reside in Massachusetts.
It is customary for him to be laid off during the winter months. This winter however, has been extremely frustrating for him to even begin to receive unemployment benefits.
His last day of work was last November and has yet to receive dollar one. All the paper work, leg work, phone work, internet work and postal work have been done repeatedly to no avail.
I don’t have to mention how strapped the family of 4 (with 2 special needs children) has been over the holidays and extreme cold weather this winter. He will be returning to work before he even gets the money owed him to help pay the oil bill, the mortgage bill, etc.
Please give us some direction and/or attention on this issue. The circles they’ve been going in is dizzying and the bills just pile up.
I am being an advocate for their cause as we don’t know where else to go or to whom we should be directing this complaint. Thank you for your time,
Concerned Sister,
R.W.
Chris’s Response
I would like to give you some direction, however, I suspect the road map for any useful specific suggestions might be in “All the paper work, leg work, phone work, internet work and postal work have been done repeatedly to no avail”.
The first thing that came to mind while reading was that the liable state for the claim is likely New Hampshire and then I began wondering if the last layoff was as common as other layoffs your brother-in-law had experienced in past winters. And if it could be that NH law was somehow holding things up because of something new, or existing in their unemployment laws.
Some states have special rules just for the purpose of “seasonal layoffs” and unemployment benefits.
This is quite common in states which have for instance, a lot of industry reliant on tourism .. such as the skiing industry that allows an employer to basically register a season begin/end date to keep them exempt from paying for benefits for unemployment attributable to other employers outside the season dates.
Additionally, I did a few google searches and it looks as if in 2012, NH took away the possibility of having a job attached status from seasonal employees collecting unemployment benefits.
Could this be part of the problem?
I’m at a loss as to what to tell you about where to complain, or even what to complain about because I can’t even assume he hasn’t received a determination denying benefits .. which of course comes with appeal rights.
The more I know that is relevant to whatever the issue with getting unemployment benefits is .. the better I might be able to help.
Chris