Georgia school workers denied unemployment benefits

http://m.jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2012-06-01/story/georgia-school-workers-demonstrate-today-over-benefits-policy

Friday, June 1, 2012
Georgia school workers to demonstrate today over benefits policy
By Walter C. Jones

ATLANTA - Organized labor and its supporters plan a demonstration today against a state policy change that is leaving school workers without benefit checks over the summer.

School-bus drivers in Savannah staged a similar protest in mid-May.

"Georgia has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, so there are really not a lot of opportunities for these folks to get jobs in the summer because there are no jobs," said Yvonne Robinson, secretary/treasurer of the Georgia AFL-CIO.

Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, the target of the outrage, says he changed the policy to correct inconsistencies in how unemployment-insurance benefits had been granted.

The issue arose last year when public prekindergarten teachers complained that they were denied benefits while prekindergarten teachers from private schools and churches received them, according to Labor Department spokesman Tom Krause. When the department's lawyers investigated, they learned the agency had been inconsistent and also violated state law.

"It came down to a fairness issue," he said.

Federal law specifically exempts teachers from summer benefits and other workers who expect seasonal breaks in work. However, it allows states to grant benefits to lunchroom workers, bus drivers, crossing guards and other school employees over the summer as long as all are eligible, public or private.

The state had granted benefits to the private-school employees and those working for companies under contract with schools, like the Savannah bus drivers. Public-school workers had not gotten benefit checks because state law says they are to be treated the same as teachers.

Butler conducted a December public hearing and released his decision in February in which he decided rather than to grant it to every worker in the same category and seek a change in state law, he was denying them all.

.....

Since January, the state has reduced unemployment benefits and enacted legislation to require welfare recipients to take drug tests at their own expense, issues the union also fought as harmful to low-income Georgians.

Some bus drivers have complained that they didn't have any warning, leaving them too little time to sock away money or find temporary jobs. Butler's spokesman said his option to hold a public hearing five months before the end of school was his way of providing ample notice.

Robinson said that, even though the union's lobbyist attended the hearing before she began representing the AFL-CIO, the organization didn't learn of the outcome until local affiliates reported their members were denied when they applied during the Easter break. She wasn't aware of an effort by the state organization to notify workers of the policy change.