Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), whose disdain for working people is no secret, last month told state Labor Department hearing officers, who decide unemployment benefit appeals, that they better start deciding more of those cases in favor of employers who want those benefits denied, the Maine Sun Journal reports.  

At that gathering, LePage scolded about eight administrative hearing officers and their supervisors, complaining that too many cases on appeal from the Bureau of Unemployment were being decided in favor of employees. He said the officers were doing their jobs poorly, sources said.

More than 4,000 Georgia education workers who have been wrongfully denied unemployment insurance benefits since a 2011 ruling by the state’s labor commissioner will collect more than $8 million in back payments.

Andy Richards, new media strategist at the AFL-CIO, sent the following message to working family activists:

It’s been a long winter for locked-out American Crystal Sugar workers. Workers have been locked out for nearly 19 months from their jobs because of the greed of CEO David Berg and company board members.

Luckily, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled recently that workers were entitled to receive unemployment benefits under state law. This has been a lifeline for American Crystal Sugar workers.

More than 400 locked-out North Dakota American Crystal Sugar workers got some good news this week when the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled they were eligible to collect unemployment benefits. When the lockout began in August 2011, North Dakota Job Service ruled the workers were ineligible for the benefits.

Who's the Boss? is a cross-post from Working America’s Dear David workplace advice column. David knows you deserve to be treated fairly on the job and he’s available to answer your questions, whether it is co-workers making off-handed comments that you should retire or you feel like your job's long hours are causing stress.

Question: 

I was on unemployment insurance (UI) for a long time and finally got hired, but only part time (the employer wanted to avoid paying medical benefits for full-time workers). I continued to file UI low earnings reports, but the employer was very slow to report my earnings. It was unclear who my employer actually was, too. Was it the company I worked for or the corporate HR firm it contracted out to?

—Longing for more, Hawaii

It gets a little complicated, but we’re going to drill down into some new economic data from two new analyses, showing that contrary to what Mitt Romney and his economic hatchet man Paul Ryan claim, ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will not, repeat, will not hurt the economy or job growth.

This is a cross-post by Sara Jerving of the Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch.

When Dave Schumacher, 51 years old, lost his job in 2009 in U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis., he wasn’t alone. Schumacher drove trucks for a supplier company that served the General Motors (GM) SUV plant, the economic heartbeat of this blue-collar town. GM consolidated production in Texas and Mexico.

When the four-million-square-foot GM plant in the southern part of town closed in 2009 after a series of layoffs, it took with it the jobs of some 2,800 employees, the single most significant economic blow inflicted upon any Wisconsin community since the economic collapse of 2008. But it wasn’t just GM workers who lost their jobs, the closure caused a ripple effect of business closings and layoffs in the area, leaving an ill-equipped safety net supporting the workers who remained in the community. 

This month marks the end of the federal extended unemployment insurance benefits program for 35 states with the nation’s highest jobless rates. More than half a million long-term jobless workers have lost their unemployment lifeline. Chad Stone of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) says:

As we’ve explained previously, EB [extended benefits] will no longer be available in any state, not because most states’ economies have improved to anywhere near pre-recession conditions, but because they have not significantly deteriorated in the past three years.

Relying upon a bogus interpretation of federal law and regulations, the state of Georgia has begun to deny seasonal workers the unemployment insurance (UI) benefits they have received for 16 years during their off seasons. Thousands of workers are affected—contract school bus drivers, bus monitors, longtime crossing guards, cafeteria cooks, janitors, landscapers and teachers in private religious schools. 

In the midst of a terrible jobs crisis, there are those in North Carolina who seek to cut assistance for those who have lost their jobs. That’s just plain wrong.

Currently, North Carolina’s Chamber of Commerce seeks to restrict unemployment benefits by reducing the maximum weekly income from $506 to $350. In addition to the monetary cut, the time allowed to receive benefits could be reduced from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. The restriction of unemployment benefits will devastate hundreds of thousands of families who are actively looking for work.