It's a job trying to get unemployment pay

Minnesotans are having trouble filing for unemployment compensation under a new automated system that was supposed to make applications easier.

Officials disagree on the magnitude of the problem, but estimates of the number of unemployed Minnesotans left waiting for benefit checks ranges from about 1,000 to as high as 10,000.

Brad Rosander, 25, a concrete finisher from Rush City, said he's still waiting for his first check after he was laid off Nov. 20 from a job installing sidewalks. He said that he filed for unemployment insurance "a bunch of times" by phone and computer and is now awaiting an application form in the mail. "My fridge is empty, my bills are backing up and overdue," Rosander said. "I ain't having Christmas this year. I don't have a dime to my name."

A legislative hearing to examine the problem is scheduled for Jan. 14.

Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, who chairs the committee overseeing the department said the agency "has ignored the plight of unemployed workers."

Dan McElroy, commissioner of the state Department of Employment and Economic Development, and Lee Nelson, director of legal affairs for the department, said that no more than 1,000 workers were facing delays in getting their unemployment checks.

But Jim Monroe, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the union that represents state workers who process the claims, disagreed.

"It's way higher than that, " Monroe said. "Our best estimate is that there are between 6,000 and 10,000 who are eligible for unemployment insurance but not getting paid."

McElroy insisted on Friday that the department is dealing with the benefits backlog and complaints about callers being placed on hold for lengthy periods of time. The department has installed 40 additional phone lines, and has hired 32 customer-service workers who will begin work on Jan. 2.

"We care deeply and have been working incredibly hard both to take care of people who have claims today, and implement this new system that will provide better service and more service for years to come," he said.

McElroy said that phone waits, which previously averaged more than 30 minutes, were down to 14 minutes last week. He said that even 14 minutes was too long.

Monroe said 50 department employees are working overtime on Sundays "to try to dig out of this hole" and expressed concern for both his overworked members and frustrated unemployed workers who are trying to access the system.

"We've got to be sitting on a tsunami of the unemployed," he said.

McElroy disputed Monroe's estimate, saying the department typically is processing 6,000 people at any given time to determine insurance eligibility.

"This isn't new," McElroy said. "We would have a similar number determining eligibility prior to the new system."

Craig Olson, president of the Duluth Building and Construction Trades Council, said he has been a union business representative since 1991, "and I have had more complaints in the last year than I have had in the previous 15 years."

The department put employers on the system two years ago and began the online and telephone self-service system for employees on Oct. 15. In a news release, it touted the $42.5 million system as being more efficient and accurate and quoted McElroy saying it would "better meet the needs of employers and individuals."

The new system replaces one that was 20 years old. McElroy said programmers in state government who were familiar with the old system were retiring.

"We had some difficulties, some challenges, although it is getting dramatically better, even this [past] week," he said.

Under the new system, he said, the state pays benefits weekly, rather than biweekly, and workers can check by phone or online to find out how many weeks they have been paid and how many weeks are remaining. It also is a more accurate system, McElroy said.

"We are solving some systems problems," he said. "Once it is working smoothly, it will be a lot better for workers."

The new system is far more efficient than the old one, which required applicants to stand in line for two to three hours and wait six to eight weeks to get an unemployment check, McElroy said.

"Unemployment by its nature is seasonal," he said. "At a low point this fall we had about 45,000 collecting benefits and today that number is about 70,000 and by January it will likely be 100,000. As an example, this week, we will pay about $18 million in benefits."

Workers report long waits

Told that the department said the average phone wait time had dropped to 14 minutes, Larry Gish, a 58-year-old laid-off pipefitter from Virginia, said: "Not for me it ain't. It's been 45 minutes to two hours every time I call in. ... It's horrible."

Workers also complain that if they make a mistake punching information into the phone or computer, the system forces them to start over.

"The complaints have gotten worse," said Robert Kasper, a business agent with Laborers Union Local 132 in St. Paul.

Ed Soloscy, 54, a concrete finisher from Woodbury, said he was laid off for a month in October and had to make five phone calls, each lasting 40 minutes or longer, to get his unemployment insurance.

He said he is not sure whether he got paid all he was due, but he did not want to go through the hassle of calling again.

Tom Stich, 47, took a voluntary layoff from Xcel Energy's special constructions division on Dec. 7. "We are all taking turns taking time off because the work is slow," he said.

Because he earned less during one three-month period last year, he said, he is getting an insurance check of only $243, rather than the $538 a week he thought he would get. And because of the long phone holds he had to pay $29 more a month for minutes on his cell phone.

He borrowed $100 from his brother to buy gift cards for his son, 21, and daughter, 9.

"I told my kids we are going to be lucky to have crackers and milk for Christmas," he said.

Randy Furst • 612-673-7382