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


HEIDI F ANDERSON, Employe

U S PROTEL INC, Employer

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE DECISION
Hearing No. 99201127NR


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 employe is eligible for benefits, as of week 28 of 1999, if she is otherwise qualified.

Dated and mailed December 13, 1999
anderhe.usd : 105 : 6  VL 1001.09  VL 1059.20

/s/ David B. Falstad, Chairman

Pamela I. Anderson, Commissioner

/s/ James A. Rutkowski, Commissioner


MEMORANDUM OPINION

The commission has affirmed the appeal tribunal decision in this case, for the following reasons. First, private contracts between parties cannot supercede the statutory and common law regarding unemployment insurance. It is for this reason that the employe's attendance failures, which led the employer to conclude that the employe had "self-terminated" herself, do not legally constitute a quit of employment in this case. The employe had valid reasons for her failures to have contacted the employer on the dates in question; her failures thus cannot be deemed to have been inconsistent with an intent to continue the employment relationship, the relevant legal standard for a quit of employment. For these reasons, the administrative law judge was exactly correct in her conclusion that the employe had not quit her employment before the employer determined to retroactively reduce the employe's wage for the previous two weeks to $5.50 per hour.

The commission also agrees with the administrative law judge that the employer's reduction of the wage gave the employe good cause to quit the employment. Since the employe in fact had not quit the employment previously, the employer's reduction of the employe's wage was extremely unfair to the employe, if not punitive. For these reasons, and those stated in the appeal tribunal decision, the commission has affirmed that decision.


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