Total and Partial Unemployment TPU 460.07

Automatic Short Week Benefit

Payment made under an Automatic Short Week Benefit plan is wages. To qualify for these benefits, the terms of the employer-union contract specify that the employee must work part of the week for which the benefits are paid. The contract determines the amount of benefits payable, based on the difference between the hours worked and the hours in a normal workweek. If the claimant receives unemployment insurance benefits for the same week, the Automatic Short Week Benefits is reduced by the amount of UI. However, an employee is not required to apply for nor be eligible for unemployment benefits as a prerequisite to receiving Short Week payments. Therefore, this plan differs from supplemental unemployment benefits plans in that this payment is made in lieu of unemployment benefits rather than to supplement them.

In Precedent Benefit Decision 60 the Board held that:

". . . the ‘Automatic Short Week Benefit’ which the claimant received was paid ‘under a plan or system established’ by the employer and it appears that the plan was available at least to all those employees whose jobs were covered by the contract between the employer and the union . . . This payment received from the employer cannot be construed to be supplemental unemployment benefits. . . The ‘Automatic Short Week Benefits’ received by the claimant represents wages within the meaning of the code and during the week with respect to which these wages were payable the claimant was not an unemployed individual . . ."