STATE OF WISCONSIN
LABOR AND INDUSTRY REVIEW COMMISSION
P O BOX 8126, MADISON, WI 53708-8126 (608/266-9850)

PAUL J ROGERS JR, Employee

HUTCHINSON TECHNOLOGY INC, Employer

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE DECISION
Hearing No. 06202000EC


An administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Division of Unemployment Insurance of the Department of Workforce Development issued a decision in this matter. A timely petition for review was filed.

The commission has considered the petition and the positions of the parties, and it has reviewed the evidence submitted to the ALJ. Based on its review, the commission agrees with the decision of the ALJ, and it adopts the findings and conclusion in that decision as its own.

DECISION

The decision of the administrative law judge is affirmed. Accordingly, the employee is ineligible for benefits beginning in week 37 of 2006, and until seven weeks have elapsed since the end of the week of discharge and the employee has earned wages in covered employment performed after the week of discharge equaling at least 14 times the employee's weekly benefit rate which would have been paid had the discharge not occurred.

Dated and mailed March 21, 2007
rogerpa . usd : 115 : 1    MC 630.09  MC 697

/s/ James T. Flynn, Chairman

/s/ Robert Glaser, Commissioner



MEMORANDUM OPINION


The employee worked more than a year for the employer, a computer component manufacturing business.

It is undisputed that, between Monday, August 21, and Wednesday, August 30, 2006, the following discrepancies existed between the arrival/departure time recorded by the employee and the actual time:

Date Recorded Actual Discrepancy
8/21/06 left 4:00 pm 3:24 pm 36 minutes
8/22/06 arrived 7:30 am 8:09 am 39 minutes
8/29/06 arrived 6:30 am 7:08 am 38 minutes
8/30/06 left 4:30 pm 3:44 pm 46 minutes

This record translates into the employee claiming, and being paid for, 2.65 hours he did not actually work during this two-week period.

Upon discovering these discrepancies, the employer met with the employee and provided him an opportunity to explain his actions. The employee essentially acknowledged during this meeting that his records were not as accurate as they should have been and, according to the testimony of both employer witnesses, that he had suspected this might be coming.

The employer's policies, as the employee concedes in his petition, specify time theft as a major infraction which may lead to immediate termination.

According to his testimony, the employee explained to the employer after he was discharged that, because it was not always possible to access a computer immediately upon arriving at work or immediately prior to leaving work, he would input an estimated schedule into the computer at the beginning of the work week, and, when he gained access to a computer later in the week, would "then attempt to remember and alter my time to what I thought I came in at and what time I left at." The employee also testified that he alerted the employer several weeks earlier to the difficulty gaining access to a computer that he and other staff were experiencing, but the employer contends that this alert related to gaining access to a computer to record time spent on particular jobs, not gaining access to record work hours.

The commission has consistently placed special emphasis on the integrity of an employer's time/payroll system, and has consistently held that an intentional theft of time constitutes misconduct. See, Morales v. Prime Care Health Plan, UI Hearing No. 97605882MW (LIRC Aug. 26, 1998); Little v. Kentucky Fried Chicken, UI Hearing No. 02008297JV (LIRC May 20, 2003); Moore v. Alexian Village of Milwaukee, Inc., UI Hearing No. 05608396MW (LIRC Feb. 23, 2006); Krueger v. Voith Paper Fabrics Appleton, Inc., UI Hearing No. 06401483AP (LIRC Sept. 15, 2006).

Here, the employee was aware of the emphasis the employer placed on accurate time reporting. He not only testified that this was stressed at his initial employee orientation/training, but concedes that he was aware that the employer's work rules characterized inaccurate time reporting as a major rule infraction.

The excuse offered by the employee does not justify or even adequately explain his actions. The employee was necessarily aware of the work schedule he inputted each week since he created it. He was also necessarily aware that the schedule he actually worked during the weeks at issue did not accord with it. In fact, the schedule he actually worked, over a period of just two work weeks, was 2.65 hours less than the schedule he had recorded. The commission would have found the employee's explanation more persuasive if the daily discrepancies were for just a few minutes, and if some days he worked more hours and some days fewer than the schedule he had recorded. However, this is not the case.

The employee offered the testimony of two of his coworkers who confirmed that it was often difficult to gain access to a computer close to arrival or departure times. However, the record does not show that these coworkers, or any other of the employee's coworkers, had similarly significant discrepancies between their actual and recorded arrival and departure times.

Moreover, simply because the employee may have pointed out this computer access difficulty to the employer several weeks before his discharge does not excuse him from accurate time reporting. In fact, it actually underscores his awareness that accurate time reporting was required.

The record supports a conclusion that the employee engaged in intentional time theft which constitutes misconduct.



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uploaded 2007/03/26