Help Wanted: Retiree may qualify for aid

DEAR CARRIE: I am 88 years old. I was a teacher's aide for 10 years until I was forced to retire recently after an argument with a student. Am I eligible for unemployment benefits since I have no job? -- Jobless Retiree

DEAR JOBLESS: Generally retiring from a job is considered a voluntary action, and when people leave a job voluntarily they usually don't qualify for unemployment benefits. Maybe you have some extenuating circumstances since you maintain you were forced to leave. So apply and hear what comes back. The New York State Department of Labor says it looks at claims on a case-by-case basis.

You can reach the unemployment Telephone Claims Center at 888-209-8124. Bear in mind one of the qualifications for unemployment benefits is that you must be actively seeking work.

DEAR CARRIE: I have a question about my wife's lack of compensation when she works extra hours. She is hourly and punches a clock. Her job as an assistant requires her to see patients for various therapies. She may see six or seven patients during the day. Her normal working hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with an hour off for lunch.

My question has to do with paperwork she has to complete. For each patient she sees she must fill out a progress report. Because she sees patients back-to-back, the only time she has available to fill out paperwork is at the end of the day. One night she worked on paperwork until 7 p.m., three hours past her quitting time, and wasn't paid for that time. Yet, if she is more than 15 minutes late, her pay is docked.

She was told she should fill out paperwork while she sees other patients since the company pays her only for the hours it can bill as service. She says this is the industry norm and the extra hours are just part of the job. What do you think? -- Wife Underpaid?

DEAR WIFE UNDERPAID: An industry norm can be illegal, and it sounds as if your wife's company is acting illegally by not paying her for the extra work.

Since she is an hourly employee, the company has to pay her for all time she works. So if she stays late to do paper work, by law she should be paid for the extra time.

The federal labor definition of "employ" includes not only work that employers require employees to do but work that they also allow, or "suffer" employees to do.

"Some people think that there is a distinction between ordering an employee to work, and just looking the other way and allowing someone to work," said Irv Miljoner, who heads the U.S. Department of Labor Long Island office. "There is no distinction."

And he added, "These hours-worked issues are among the most common compliance issues that we deal with: people not being paid for all time worked. It's not just full hours. It could be a half-hour."

You declined to say exactly what your wife does. So it is difficult to know if she falls into the professional category of workers, who are exempt from overtime because of the advanced knowledge required for their jobs, such as doctors and registered nurses.

Even if her duties made her professionally exempt, the company would still have to pay her for all hours worked because it destroyed the exemption by docking her pay when she missed less than a full day of work. The pay of exempt workers cannot be docked unless they miss a full day for personal reasons.

For more on unemployment-benefits eligibility, go to: http://bit.ly/vFpH2b. For more on the definition of hours worked, go to http://1.usa.gov/cQhejk.