With all due respect, up until you were notified the ship was changing unions you still had a permanent job. The way the industry is (and actually a lot of industries) yes, you may get notified you are not coming back. So if you collect unemployment and you DO return to work do you return the money? Me thinks not. Again it goes back to a moral question since it has been determined to be legal under the current rules to collect.
Here is a thought, should school teachers be allowed to file and collect during summer breaks if they aren’t working? If not, why not? It seems to me most if not all the same conditions apply
Did I assume I was going back to work with them? yes. But at the end of my vacation they could have easily called someone else instead of me. There was no written agreement when I signed off the ship that I was going to come back or they were going to call me to come back. When I get my discharge that is the ended of the contract with that company. If you have a contract if you have an agreement that you will return to that same company then yes you should not collect unemployment but through the union I am there are no contracts. The companies call you back because I assume it is easier to not have to retrain people on that certain ship.
As far as teachers go most get a paycheck through 12 months. Most of the time they take a little bit out of each paycheck so they can get a paycheck every month and not go with out a paycheck. One of the cases for unemployment is you can’t file if your getting your normal paycheck. As far as schools that pay teachers for 10 months at a time I would assume there is a contract in place that they will come back starting the beginning of the next school year. But if no contract is signed and you taught all year it’s not the teachers responsibility to assume they have a job and wait with out a paycheck till school to start to find out if they are employeed or not.
Sports players that are free agents can collect unemployment because they are not under contract with any team. That’s an extreme example but its similar to my situation.
[QUOTE=Traitor Yankee;164269]Anyway you spin it, most of us are still going to think you are a fucking thief.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t think this person is a thief for a very simple reason. If you have no contract you have no job and you are entitled to unemployment. If this causes a company’s unemployment contribution to go up it is their own fault as they can choose to divide the salary between active work time and off time like normal corporations but they choose not to do so. Most modern companies pay mariners an annual salary. USA unions could, like many non-USA unions, negotiate for a salary which would insure a regular pay check if they too were not stuck in some ancient titled gentry-serf time warp. If a company chooses to treat an employee as a temporary contract employee with no written guarantee of being called back for another contract and not pay them then they are as entitled to draw unemployment as anyone.
I think the consensus among some of us is that you shouldn’t collect until you’re supposed to be back to work. I understand the deep sea union thing, and with that said it wouldn’t bother me it you work 120 days, take 120 off, and start hitting the hall. At that point you don’t get anything, then start collecting. You weren’t going back to work anyways so why get paid for being out of work if you’re really not out of work? If you want to push logic then you should theoretically be able to collect for weekends if you’re a 9-5’er…you weren’t going to work anyways, but fuck it you should damn well get paid anyways, burger king or ricky’s construction may not have a spot for you come monday.
How about guys who pave in the northeast that get laid off every october…they know the layoff is coming but they collect EVERY year. Or they can plan ahead and line up some other work for the winter, or go work in a different business. That’s not the intent of unemployment.
I don’t know anyone that has a contract guaranteeing them a certain number of days except in rare cases. Like anyone else union contract or not, “permanent” or not, there’s always a chance there won’t be a spot for you next time. WHEN that happens, then go ahead and collect like any normal person would do.
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[QUOTE=RespectMyAuthority;164273]I think a company that keeps people waiting by the phone after they are due to go back and denies these people are unemployed are thieves.[/QUOTE]
I’m all for collecting if you’re out of work longer than you’re supposed to be. 28/28, I’d be filing a claim pretty close to day 28 unless it was a fucked up crewchange or something understandable.
[QUOTE=Jeaux Bawss;164167]I have not misinformed anyone I have simply not phoned them. If the Mariners can’t take a hint how is it my fault. If I happen to need them and they take my call then it is mutually beneficial. I never said don’t take another job if you want to. I just said I’ll call when I have something.[/QUOTE]
You’re Jeaux Bawss cause you have no Jeaux Balls… Probably need your Jeaux Ass whipped for being glib with peoples livelihood.
[QUOTE=Skoidat69;164278]Vacation pay is withheld earnings… That’s what you tell Unemployment people[/QUOTE]
They were told that. They did not care and they still wanted a letter from the union. As I said before, I could tell from the start of the call that the UI rep was determined not to allow my claim. I am guessing that the clerk making 40K a year for full time work is pissed that someone can make six figures for “part time” work.
I collected unemployment a couple of times for a few weeks back in the 80’s. I could collect a couple times a year if I wanted to, but why bother. I’m never out of work for more than a few weeks. It sucks to get home after four months on, and two weeks later have people wanting me to fly out immediately to bail them out. I’ve learned to keep my head down for a few weeks after I get home. Probably I am a fool for not filing and collecting every time a seasonal job or trip job ends.
We live in a society with millions of people that never work longer than they have to in order to get the next unemployment or disability or workers comp check. Unfortunately, we have to pay to support those people, but that does not mean that we should copy their methods.
[QUOTE=Chief Seadog;164261]
Here is a thought, should school teachers be allowed to file and collect during summer breaks if they aren’t working? If not, why not? It seems to me most if not all the same conditions apply.[/QUOTE]
In some school districts the teachers have the option of either getting paid in equal monthly amounts over the school year (9 or 10 months), or having their annual salary paid out in equal amounts over twelve months. It all depended on the language in the contract.
This is not about what you think is morally right or what sits well with your pride or what have you. This is about what you are/are not entitled to since you are a (previously) working person who has through no fault of your own been put out to bare pasture.
If you are on furlough, or what we used to call in the shipyard “passed out the gate,” then call the unemployment office and find out if you are eligible. They go on the facts- what you were paid last week, what you normally get paid, do you get severance, do you get a vacation check, do you have a date for return to work, etc. All that factors in. If you are furloughed but have a vacation check that lasts from x to y, you may be eligible for UI once your vacation check period is finished. Capiche??
Use your head. Your pride is not going to feed your kids and keep your lights on. You think Jeaux Bawss cares if your kids eat?
I myself have never been out of work longer than a month involuntarily and I’m a woman, but times have change and things are a lot tougher than they used to be for women and men alike so there’s no harm in using the benefits you have earned. My dad would have never used UI but he got a pretty damned good union pension which my mother still benefits from even though he’s been dead for 15 years so it all evens out in the end. You won’t see Donald Trump or any of these other rich assholes crying over whether to take a tax break for the next million so why are you fretting over a few weeks of UI?? Seriously?
There is a difference between getting furloughed and missing work you were expected to have, and simply filing for unemployment because you
Can’t budget for your 2 or 3 or 4 months off.
Sure if I was working 2 months on and two months off and the a week before crew change they said no joy, yeah I would file for unemployment that day. But to file with the expectation of going back to work is being a leech.
Can’t afford your lifestyle with that long stretch of time off? Get a side job at home, or get a different shipping job, or change your lifestyle, or all fucking three.
Rotary union jobs are a bit different, but even still. If you are filing almost your entire time off the water and still working 180 days or more a year, change your goddamn lifestyle.
[QUOTE=RespectMyAuthority;164259]You would know the deal before you took the job? Most of the personnel managers that I have run into in 25+ years are the equivalent of used car salesmen. They have trouble telling the truth. They will say one thing one day and something different the next. There is no piece of paper signed by them stating “terms”.[/QUOTE]
Dear Mr. Respect My Authority,
Who said anything about a piece of paper? For UI purposes, you made an implied verbal agreement with your employer when you accepted your last job. We all work under terms and conditions of employment. Whether you can understand that or not is up to you.
[QUOTE=catherder;164288]Some of you are not getting it.
This is not about what you think is morally right or what sits well with your pride or what have you. This is about what you are/are not entitled to since you are a (previously) working person who has through no fault of your own been put out to bare pasture.[/QUOTE]
What an odd statement. I can only speak for myself here, but is always about what I think is morally right and what sits well with my pride. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right.
[QUOTE=Lookout;164297]Dear Mr. Respect My Authority,
Who said anything about a piece of paper? For UI purposes, you made an implied verbal agreement with your employer when you accepted your last job. We all work under terms and conditions of employment. Whether you can understand that or not is up to you.[/QUOTE]
Oh understanding the terms and conditions is fine but a company actually honoring them is another. What people in personnel say and what they do can quite often be two different things. When the agreement is verbal, do you really think that the shipboard employee is going to win when there is a dispute?
I used to work for a company that the personnel manager was an infamous liar. For instance…New guys would ask something like “Where is the ship going and for how long?” The personnel guy would ask “Where do you want to go?” New guy would say “I would like to go to Paradise Island for 90 days because I am getting married in four months”. Personnel guy would say “Yeah, you are in luck. It is going there for right around 90 days”. Get to the ship and it would be on a grain run to bum-fudge Africa for 6 months. I guess we knew the terms. The terms of employment were that the personnel guy was a lying POS.
[QUOTE=tugsailor;164409]Personnel guys are salesmen. They will misrepresent anything to get the boat crewed[/QUOTE]
When I was on the regular round-the-world run often our first stop after leaving the U.S. was Italy. One time this new AB asked the captain if all the cargo marked for Persian Gulf ports was going to be discharged in Italy for tranship. Captain told him, no, all the cargo is going to the ports as marked. The AB said that the union dispacher had told him the ship was going to “Italy and back”. Captain said “that’s right, Italy and back, just back the long way.”
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;164413]When I was on the regular round-the-world run often our first stop after leaving the U.S. was Italy. One time this new AB asked the captain if all the cargo marked for Persian Gulf ports was going to be discharged in Italy for tranship. Captain told him, no, all the cargo is going to the ports as marked. The AB said that the union dispacher had told him the ship was going to “Italy and back”. Captain said “that’s right, Italy and back, just back the long way.”[/QUOTE]
The union dispatchers that I have dealt with in 25+ years usually don’t have a clue where the ship is going. If they have the slightest idea, it came from the company. Then it is from someone in personnel. I don’t bother asking the dispatcher this question any more. The about the only thing the dispatcher will know is what it pays.
I remember during the first Gulf War, I got called from the dispatcher for a job on a ship that I had been on before. It was the Cape Mohican. The previous year I was on and did an exercise with the military off Cape Henry. I asked the dispatcher where the ship was going. He said something like “I think it will be doing an exercise off Virginia like last year”. It was a couple of days after Iraq invaded Kuwait. I packed my gear for the long haul as I knew I would be heading to the sandbox.
I don’t hold people who work in personnel with shipping companies in high regard. To me, they are on the same level as used car salesmen, politicians and ambulance chasing lawyers. BTW, Union dispatchers are only slightly better.