Talx Corporation - Critics Say Firm Weakens Safety Net as It Fights Jobless Claims

[bridgit]

WASHINGTON — With a client list that reads like a roster of Fortune 500 firms, a little-known company with an odd name, the Talx Corporation, has come to dominate a thriving industry: helping employers process — and fight — unemployment claims.


By the time Gerald Grenier successfully completed the process for unemployment benefits, he had lost his apartment and moved in with his sister.

With hundreds of thousands of jobs lost and major industries on the ropes, America’s array of government aid subsidies, including unemployment, insurance, food stamps and housing, is being tested as never before. This series examines how the safety net is holding up under the worst economic crisis in decades.

Talx headquarters in St. Louis.

Talx, which emerged from obscurity over the last eight years, says it handles more than 30 percent of the nation’s requests for jobless benefits. Pledging to save employers money in part by contesting claims, Talx helps them decide which applications to resist and how to mount effective appeals.

The work has made Talx a boom business in a bust economy, but critics say the company has undermined a crucial safety net. Officials in a number of states have called Talx a chronic source of error and delay. Advocates for the unemployed say the company seeks to keep jobless workers from collecting benefits.

“Talx often files appeals regardless of merits,” said Jonathan P. Baird, a lawyer at New Hampshire Legal Assistance. “It’s sort of a war of attrition. If you appeal a certain percentage of cases, there are going to be those workers who give up.”

When fewer former workers get aid, a company pays lower unemployment taxes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/us/04talx.html?hp

[patrice]

1. Another frakking leech-corporation on our backs.

[mrcheerful]

2. Yeah SO and I were out yesterday paying rent a center, next door to it was one of those instant

money for checks places, it was packed with folks standing in line on the side walk. It is the era of the predator that pries on those who are just one step from living in a card board box. Notice how this business just happened to have started 8 years ago?

[Gman2]

3. The people, are a powderkeg. Both sides are about to splode.

They push people past their ability to survive, and there is but one way. And it aint gonna be as Teafatso's say. There are WAY too many people with nothin to lose. And after the hope of change, with Obama, that is a classic formula for revolution.

My employer tried a scam to disqualify me. I ruined his rep in court. To leave you with nothing, is assualt. And those guys better hope googling them doesnt work. They are evil. I always wondered how tow truck drivers could rationalize their job. Half the job of cops now is to shake you down for their wages.

Now, in addition to freecredit . com, we have character guard. It tells you when someone queries about you. This, because we cannot buy nor sell if we dont have adequate credit. Everything we MUST buy, is jacked, according to our credit. It aint gonna stay cool much longer.

[bridgit]

4. Yup, and people wonder what ever happened to the war on poverty and what it really meant

[Canuckistanian]

5. Unemployment taxes?

A company pays taxes based on how many former workers are on unemployment benefits? For real?

[bridgit]

6. Ahhh yeah, in so many words - corporate America is planned obsolescence & the denial of service...

For profit of course. They got way fucking pissed when OSHA made them put rubber stops on the bottoms of ladders in the workplace I mean - there they are - denying unemployment benefits is part of their overall bottom-line enhancing metric no doubt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. Pretty much

Higher turnover turns into higher costs

[unblock]

7. simple solution: don't make the reason for separation any of the employer's business

by giving a financial incentive to employers to lie and cheat ex-employees of unemployment benefits, some companies are going to do the inevitable, and other companies are going to specialize in it.

companies should pay unemployment tax based on things like number of employees and total number of separations (regardless of reason). if the state wants to investigate cases of fraud by claimants, they can ask the ex-employer, and fine them for not complying truthfully, but still not give them an incentive to commit fraud.