Military Spouse moving from Maryland to Hawaii

by Erika

(MD)

My husband and I currently live in MD, but he received orders to Hawaii. I am an hourly employee who works anywhere between 24-40 hours a week. My last day at work is April 24th since our cars and household goods are being shipped on April 15th and May 6th. I was asked by my employer if I would telework 3-6 hours a week until July 1st in order to be available to assist and answer any questions that my 250 subordinates, my replacement and my boss might have. Of course I agreed and I received a new employee contract from my employer that lists me as an “intermittent employee” as of May 4, 2015. Will this negatively affect my unemployment claim? I am worried that when I file an unemployment claim in July, I will get denied since I was an “intermittent employee.” I have worked for the same company for 4 years as both part time and full time status, I would hate for this to hurt my claim.

Chris’s Response

Hi Erika,

I believe I need you to clarify a point for me first.

Are you telling me you now have a signed employment contract with your current employer calling you an intermittent (whatever that might be classified under .. maybe the FLSA) employee and that it is an open ended contract not mentioning July 1st as your last day?

My first concern was that the employer might do this just so they could argue for purposes of UI, that intermittent is synonymous with temporary work which in my mind is literally a long haul employment relationship at least, until an individual quits and preferably, after obtaining full-time permanent employment that also last long enough to purge any voluntary quit disqualification, or long enough to remove the last employer from a claimant’s base period.

But, when I went to verify if that theory would hold water, I found Maryland doesn’t have a special temporary worker provision.

However, because this transitional work is a telecommuting position and isn’t being done through a temp agency, for me, it becomes a change to the original terms and conditions of your employment and without an end date in the new “written” employment contract that you have signed and accepted. (Which of course, I’m assuming is the case.)

I myself, if an open end agreement, would try to close the potential loophole as quickly as possible for the sake of controlling any future unknown scenario because telecommuting makes the continuation of the employment quite viable for both you and the employer to continue with possibly other project management type jobs (another assumption) with you in Hawaii.

That you now have a contract, I believe without an end date it could very well override a any good cause provision to quit to follow a military spouse in Maryland .. after July 1st.

MD’s military/spouse provision is briefly defined by the following footnote to the DOLETA comparison chart.

“Mandatory military transfer of the individual’s spouse; the spouse may be a civilian employee of the military or a federal agency involved in military operations.”

But I’m also not an attorney and if you have a real employment contract, I would advise consulting with one of those guys .. because they don’t like to do unemployment hearing due to MD’s regs which reduce how much they can directly charge a claimant for representation.

Chris