BY CAPRICE LAWLESS
As classes are cancelled and layoffs announced, help members apply for unemployment insurance benefits. It is helpful for several reasons: First, many of us will qualify for regular unemployment and an additional $600/week through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. Secondly, it appears many employers are not going to fight unemployment claims as they have in the past, and those that do need to have a fight (from you) on their hands. Third, wise policy makers understand that to stem civil unrest and economic collapse, workers like us need to be supported by big policies put into place rapidly. Fourth, lawmakers will be able to use our numbers to get a clear picture of the despair unleashed by the cutbacks that have descended on higher education; each of our individual claims will contribute to the accurate, horribly perforated picture of our profession this data will provide. Finally, by helping our peers secure unemployment insurance benefits, the AAUP can be a powerful force to preserve professors right along with preserving the profession.
The Colorado Conference is hosting a series of unemployment-focused Zooms now to help our peers navigate the application process and to crowdsource our collected experience/wisdom. It is empowering for AAUP members to have the lowdown on unemployment application processes and resources BEFORE they pursue it. Faculty are stressed as it is, with staggering news about the pandemic, the crush of finals, end-of-semester grading, and worries their own health and that of their families. In our experience, it counts if the AAUP has the facts handy and ready to share. Here is the memo we circulated to members right after our first unemployment Zoom. (I applied for the benefits myself today, and so will have a few more tweaks and insights to share with peers in our next unemployment Zoom two weeks from now.) I hope it can give you some ideas on how to conduct similar research where you are, and how to shape a series of unemployment Zooms for your AAUP members.
To: AAUP Colo. Conf. Members:
I have been studying all I can about the unemployment situation for adjunct faculty through calls with leaders of the American Federation of Teachers, the New Faculty Majority, and Tenure for the Common Good. Last week I attended a virtual Town Hall with U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse (Colo. 2nd Dist.) and Asst. Dir. of the Colo. Dept. of Labor Unemployment Division Cher Haavid. The AAUP Colo. Conf. has also written to Colo. Gov. Polis and several lawmakers to remind them of our pressing need for unemployment insurance benefits. Yesterday I interviewed at length a Colo. Dept. of Labor and Employment (CDLE) Unemployment Division official to gather specific details on the application process to help AAUP members. Keep in mind the CDLE is using some new computer systems and has hired 80 more unemployment claims processors in the last few weeks. CDLE workers are receiving daily updates about changes to their system as they endeavor to process the crush of 30,000 claims per week that they are receiving from Colorado residents. This, amid the rapidly changing and expanding benefits landscape at the federal level during this COVID 19 pandemic. We want to give our AAUP chapter members tools now so they can apply successfully, knowing they are already stressed about having lost their classes. Here are the top tips for Colorado’s faculty from the CDLE:
- Any part-time or full-time faculty (who are paid via a W-2 instead of a 1099) qualify for unemployment if our classes have been cancelled for summer. The situation for fall semester is unknown at this time. For now, we qualify for both regular, CDLE unemployment (a fraction of our normal wages) AND the $600/week through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). For most of us working as adjuncts/contingents/lecturers, etc. at CCCS, CU, CSU, Mines, DU, etc., we are paid through a W-2 and file a federal, annual 1040 income tax form. Those who work off a 1099 qualify for the $600/week PUA but apply for that through a different, easily spotted CDLE portal. I am purposely not listing it here because some might accidentally click on it. If you are a 1099 employee, visit the CDLE website directly. The link for 1099 workers is listed on the Unemployment Division home page.
- If you are paid off a W-2 (that is 99% of us), please first read through this entire list carefully, and then apply for regular unemployment through the CDLE website at:
https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdle/unemployment
3. Once you apply for regular CDLE unemployment it AUTOMATICALLY qualifies you for the PUA. You don’t have to go through any more steps for the PUA. However, CDLE unemployment is an ongoing process, and there is something you need to do each week (see steps below).
- The application process takes a few hours. Have these documents uploaded to your computer BEFORE you click on that link and start the application process: a scan of your driver’s license (to verify identification); a complete electronic file of your most recent federal and state income taxes (2019 if you have filed that or 2018 if you have not yet filed 2019 taxes). (Yu will upload these documents when prompted to do so).
- You might think you need a copy of a note from your department chair that your classes were cancelled, or a copy of a memo about the campus being closed but no: You do not need any of those things now.
6. I have not yet seen the form itself (can’t do that until Monday, May 11), but if you see anywhere a box to check to verify that you have “reasonable assurance” of continued employment with the college, no matter your plans for Fall Semester 2020 or Spring Semester 2021, what your FLAC said, what your art department contract reads, dept. chair tells you, dean promises, etc. DO NOT check that box. No one has reasonable assurance of much in a pandemic. The clerk I spoke with had no knowledge of the “reasonable assurance” phrase but emphasized her understanding that W-2 adjunct faculty qualify for UI benefits now. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, “reasonable assurance” is a much-maligned U.S. Dept. of Labor phrase higher education admins have used for years to prevent adjunct faculty from receiving much-needed and well-deserved unemployment benefits between semesters.)
7. File the day you are unemployed (i.e., the last day of this semester; at FRCC Westminster campus this is Monday, May 11). If you file later, indicate when you file that your last day of employment was the last day of the semester. Your UI benefits are pegged to that last day of work. Even if you file later (but I recommend filing the last day you work for reasons listed below), your benefits will accrue starting that last day of employment.
8. The way you will receive this $600/week plus the CDLE UI benefit is through a debit card with a PIN number the CDLE sends to you via U.S. mail. You do not receive weekly checks or deposits to your bank account, only the debit card. You may not see that for two or three weeks due to volume of claims at the CDLE and the volume of mail at the U.S. Post Office. Delivery of the debit card may by delayed up to three weeks. DO NOT PANIC if it takes that long. DO NOT CALL the CDLE or the USPS thinking you can expedite it. You cannot.
9. Unlike with ordinary unemployment, this time you do not have to apply for three jobs every week and prove to the CDLE that we have done so. You do not have to apply for any jobs at all now to receive the benefit.
10. Each Sunday, you will need to certify that you endured another work with no employment. You do this electronically. It takes less than half an hour. This will feel strange the first time, and then it will feel ordinary. You must remember to do this, or your UI benefits will stop, and you may have to begin all over again.
11. There is an error in the current CDLE system that is sending some applicants, after they complete the forms, e-mails or texts to the effect that their claims are suspended pending an error about their IRS 1040 or their photo ID. If you have, indeed, uploaded those documents, you are to disregard that e-mail. Please do not call the CDLE office if you get one of those snafu e-mails; they are overloaded with calls as it is.
For further information contact:
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Unemployment Division
Ph.: 303-536-5615
