Various changes to the unemployment insurance law. (FE)

This bill allows DWD to offset a UI debt found to be due to DWD by an employer against a federal tax refund through the TOP.

Work-share programs Under current law, any employer may create a work-share program, defined as a program approved by DWD under which the hours of work of employees in a work unit are reduced in lieu of the layoffs of two or more employees in the work unit.

An employee included under a work-share program who otherwise qualifies to receive regular UI benefits must receive a UI benefit payment for each week that the employee is included under the program. The amount of the benefit payment is the employee's regular UI benefit amount multiplied by the employee's proportionate reduction in hours for that week under the work-share program (work-share benefits). Current law also provides, however, that an employee included under a work-share program who would otherwise be paid benefits for any week under the UI law's partial benefits formula (partial benefits) must instead receive a benefit payment for that week in the amount payable to the employee under that formula, if that amount is higher than the work-share benefits amount.

Under this bill, employees included under a work-share program may only be paid work-share benefits, and not partial benefits.

Determinations in combined-wage claims Under federal law, a state must, as a condition of approval of its UI law by the U.S. Secretary of Labor, participate in arrangements for the payment of UI benefits on the basis of combining an individual's wages and employment covered under that state's UI law with wages and employment covered under another state's UI law (combined-wage claim). Also under federal law, as a condition of employers being able to receive certain tax credits under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, a state may not relieve an employer's account of certain erroneous charges in certain cases where the employer was at fault.

Under current state law, DWD may, in connection with any issue arising under the UI law as to the status or liability of an employer in this state, issue an appealable determination as to that issue. This bill allows DWD to similarly issue an appealable determination that an out-of-state employer in a combined-wage claim is at fault for the erroneous payment of benefits under a combined-wage claim.