Unemployment Appeal

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to appeal the “Notice of Adjudicator’s Determination” sent to me on September 28, 2010, which reduces by ~40% the amount of unemployment compensation I qualify to receive.

According to this letter, I left the employment of _______ Company on June 17, 2009 because I did not have satisfactory child care arrangements. This is incorrect. Beginning June 17, 2009, I took a leave of absence to give birth to my daughter.

I contacted ________ several months later to inquire about returning to work. At that time (roughly March 2010), I found I needed a more reliable work schedule in order to have the money to pay for child care for my daughter. The work I had done prior to June 17, 2009 was strictly on-call.

When I spoke to my former supervisor, I was told that a) the company had replaced me out of necessity and b) there were no positions available, either on-call or with a regular schedule.

To sum up, I did not resign from my job with __________ Company.

I have a second objection to the determination made in this letter. The letter states that a lack of child care arrangements is a “personal reason not connected to” work.

As one of thousands of working mothers in this state, I strongly object to the idea that child care is a solely “personal” issue. In 2007, the Nebraska child care industry serviced 100,000 children. Nebraska also has the third highest female labor force participation rate of any state. Without the available and appropriate child care, the state of Nebraska would lose most (if not all) of the mothers in its workforce.

Child care is not a solely personal issue; it is also an economic one. The Office of Unemployment Insurance needs to treat it as such.