Unemployment Benefits and Refusing On-Call Shifts During a Layoff

Attorney Answer

No — your employer does not get to decide that. Whether refusing a shift disqualifies you is determined by the unemployment administrator, on the facts of the particular refusal, under a statutory standard your employer cannot rewrite by announcement.

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-236 is titled "Disqualifications. Exceptions." Subsection (a)(1) makes an individual ineligible for benefits "[I]f the administrator finds that the individual has failed without sufficient cause either to apply for available, suitable work when directed so to do by the Public Employment Bureau or the administrator, or to accept suitable employment when offered." Read the operative words: if the administrator finds, without sufficient cause, and suitable. Every one of them is a limit on the blanket rule your employer described.

"Suitable work" under the same subdivision means employment in your usual occupation or field, or other work for which you are reasonably fitted, within a reasonable distance of your residence. In assessing suitability the administrator may consider the degree of risk to your health, safety and morals, your physical fitness, your prior training and experience, your skills, your previous wage level, and the length of your unemployment.

So a refusal is not automatically disqualifying. The administrator has to find that you failed without sufficient cause to accept work that was suitable. A single missed call-in shift, or an inability to cover a shift for a reason like illness, childcare, transportation, or a conflicting obligation, is exactly the kind of fact the "sufficient cause" language exists to absorb. And nothing in the statute lets an employer declare in advance that any refusal ends your claim.

What you can do

1. File your claim now and keep filing your weekly certifications for every week you are laid off. Do not skip a week because you think you may be disqualified — an unfiled week is simply lost. 2. Answer the weekly questions honestly, including any week you turned down offered work. Concealing a refusal is far more damaging than the refusal itself. 3. Keep a log of every recall contact: the date and time you were called, the shift offered, how much notice you were given, whether you accepted, and if not, the specific reason. That log is the "sufficient cause" record. 4. Ask your employer to put the recall policy in writing. A written statement that benefits will be denied is useful to you, not to them, because it shows the policy is the employer's and not the administrator's determination. 5. If you receive a determination denying benefits, appeal it by the date printed on the notice. Unemployment appeal windows are short and are stated on the determination itself. At the hearing, address the two statutory questions directly: was the offered work suitable, and did you have sufficient cause.