LePage applies pressure on jobless hearings
The Sun Journal reported that Gov. Paul LePage has pressured unemployment appeal hearing officers at the state's Department of Labor to decide unemployment-benefit cases in favor of business owners over workers.
An investigation by the paper confirmed details of a March meeting with several attendees, all who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by their employer.
Sources told the paper that the pressure extended back over a year. Unemployment hearing officers, who are lawyers, were asked to report all decisions favoring employees to their supervisors before entering formal rulings.
The paper reported that the practice lasted just a few months and figures from the Department of Labor show just a slight decline in the number of successful employee appeals from 2011 to 2012.
Attendees at the March 21 meeting said LePage again pressured the state's unemployment hearing officers and their supervisors for deciding too many appeals in unemployment benefit cases in favor of employees and that the officers were doing their jobs poorly.
Julie Rabinowitz, spokeswoman for the Department of Labor, told the paper that she was not at the meeting and could not confirm what attendees told the Sun Journal. She said the meeting was presented as a discussion between administrative hearing officers and the governor.
Rick McHugh, a senior staff attorney with the New York-based National Employment Law Project, told the paper that such political pressure over decisions favoring employees represents "an unprecedented type of political interference in the hearing process."
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