IN THE MATTER OF THE EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
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in the matter of a claim for benefit by
SHERRY GALLANT
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IN THE MATTER of an appeal by the claimant
from decision of a Board of Referees given at
Happy Valley, NF on the 21st day of August, 2000.
DECISION
Hon. David G. Riche
The claimant appeals the decision of a Board of Referees found at Exhibits 15-1 and 15-2 of the docket. This appeal was heard at Happy Valley on the 27th of April, 2000.
The claimant filed a claim for benefits effective January 30, 2000. She had voluntarily left her employment on January 29. She had been employed part time by Vantage Enterprises for 27.5 hours per week at $6.50 per hour. The Commission determined that she did not demonstrate just cause for voluntarily leaving her employment as she had not exhausted all avenues with respect to finding suitable child care arrangements.
The claimant stated that she made a decision because she could not afford a babysitter at her salary.
The Board found that although the claimant had a good cause for leaving her employment she had not proven just cause. They found the claimant left her employment at $6.50 per hour because she felt she could not pay a babysitter on this salary, but in the meantime applied for other employment with a willingness to work for the same rate of pay. The Board found that a reasonable alternative would have been to stay in this employment until a better paying job became available. For these reasons they denied her appeal.
A minority decision of the Board stated that the claimant quit her job to care for a child after her mother, who became ill, was no longer able to babysit. The claimant worked for $6.50 per hour and with the cost of transportation to and from work, along with the going rate for a babysitter within industrialized towns where she lived, could not compete with babysitting wages paid by industrial workers. She would have been working for little or no income from her employment. For these reasons one member of the Board disagreed with the majority.
I have considered the evidence before the Board and the presentation made before me on behalf of the claimant. I am satisfied that the claimant did have just cause for quitting her employment under s. 29(c)(v): "obligation to care for a child".
It is clear from the evidence in Exhibit 6-1 that the claimant had worked for her employer for eight and a half years, and during that time had only received a raise of .50 cents per hour. This evidence supports the position of a person who was willing to work while it was beneficial for her to do so. During the last six years, she had her mother babysitting for her. But now that her mother was having surgery and her father retiring, they were unable to continue babysitting. It is only natural to understand that these arrangements with grandparents providing babysitting is usually only for short periods. In this particular case it was for a period much longer than one would expect.
The claimant in this position, with babysitting provided by her parents, made it economical for her to work. Once, of course, that babysitting vanished and she would have been required to pay $5.00 to $5.50 per hour for babysitting that would basically eliminate her income.
The law requires that the claimant show that there was no other reasonable alternative to her quitting her position. Faced with these facts, what other alternative did she have? She could not have continued working and paying babysitting as she would end up with an income of close to zero. It is my view that the Board has failed to properly consider the facts which were applicable to this case. It seems to me that the only reasonable alternative for this claimant was to quit her employment and to seek other employment which was better paying so that it would make it economically feasible for her to continue in her employment. I therefore find that the Board of Referees failed to observe the principle of natural justice and they did not base their decision on the true facts that were before them. I find the decision was made without regard to the material which it had before it.
For these reasons, the appeal of the claimant is allowed with respect to the issue of voluntarily leaving her employment.
D.G. Riche
Umpire
August 15, 2001
St. John's, NF