When Tom Corbett said that employers have told him again and again that they cannot get their people back to work until their unemployment runs out was greatly misinformed and, as a state official, most familiar with our laws, he should have known better. I have been an employer in PA for many years and if one of my laid off employees refused to come back to work until his or her unemployment benefits ran out, one call or note from me to the State would end those benefits instantly. The former employee would then be “invited” for an appeal conference which he or she would lose if the circumstances were as Corbett described.
I suppose many of us get tired and angry at these partisan facts and partisan stories that inflame peoples sense of justice and which turn out to be simply untrue, or exaggerated, or embellished and are cynically used to manipulate popular prejudice and ignorance for the political advantage of a candidate. We do the same in business which has made both our political and business ethics a kind of inside joke.
I agree with Corbett’s assessment. You can’t tell me someone losing a job making $14.00 is going to be in a big hurry to take a job at Turkey Hill for $8.00 an hour. That unemployment time is looked at as paid time off.
I work at a local big employer who has seen both job cuts and considerable slowdowns the last 2 years. People have gotten into the voluntary temporary layoff cycle and it’s looked at a another week (or month) of paid vacation. Once you give someone that taste of free money it’s hard to get them off the government tit.
I couldn’t beleve the fallout over Tom’s comments- if you don’t see it then you’re not down in the trenches with those who are working the system, because it is happening.