Factory worker sues Virginia Employment Commission

The Virginia Employment Commission is under fire again. Since the pandemic started, VEC has not had a moment of peace. People believe that the problems of the VEC did not just erupt out of nowhere due to the overwhelming numbers of jobless claims and other benefits but rather it was overwhelming because the agency was already failing. 

For decades the VEC is said to have had multiple structural and functioning problems including record-management issues, low staff morale, and unclean facilities. During the pandemic, the agency lagged in setting up benefits and created a massive backlog. This also led to a class-action lawsuit being filed against them. VEC's incompetence was brought to light by the surge of unemployment claims which overwhelmed them to the point that most people did not receive their requests. 

VEC is being sued again but this time by an unemployed Virginia factory worker named Ernest Ray. For 26 years Ray worked as a factory worker in a physically demanding position at a compressor factory. When he lost his job in 2018, he applied for and received $9,000 in unemployment benefits. Cut to three years later Ray is forced to fight the Virginia Employment Commission in Court as they try to take back the money he received as benefits. Ray kept receiving the benefits for a year while he constantly looked for a job. In 2019 he was asked by staff to report his job search activities even after his benefits ran out. During this time Ray, who is 57 years old and deaf, missed a week of search due to medical reasons and produced a doctor's note for the same. Soon after he received a notice stating that he is deemed unfit to work and an applicant must be eligible to work in order to get benefits. The state claimed that he got the benefits by mistake and they wanted it back. Ray's lawyer Hugh O'Donnell said this illustrates the ethos of a radically dysfunctional agency. 

Source: CBS News