Opinion
November 14, 1951.
Appeal from Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board.
Claimant is married and resides with her husband. They have two children. Her employment history is one of seasonal and intermittent employment. She did not work during the summer months because she had to take care of her children during their summer vacations. Her last employment was in a department store, as a wrapper in the delivery department, where her wages were at the rate of seventy-five cents an hour for a forty-hour week. After becoming unemployed she was offered work with a manufacturer of soft drinks, as an inspector and packer, with wages at eighty cents an hour, and with hours from 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 or 4:00 P.M., for three or four days a week. She refused this offer of employment on the basis that it was not for a full week, and that she preferred working from 10:00 A.M., to 6:00 P.M., and did not want to work on Saturdays. No claim is made that she was not fitted by training and experience for the proffered employment, that the wages per hour were unsatisfactory, or that the place of employment was not conveniently accessible. We think the decision of the board was erroneous as a matter of law. An affirmance thereof would establish the principle that an unemployed claimant may refuse any work offer in which he or she is not to be employed for a full week. There is no such requirement in the statute, and indeed it is inconsistent with the provisions of the statute for compensating partial unemployment (Labor Law, §§ 523, 590, subd. 3). Moreover the broad general purpose of the statute is to prevent and reduce unemployment, and to that end it is to be construed reasonably as an emergency measure. It was never intended to guarantee a claimant employment entailed with each and every condition that a claimant might impose. Decision of the appeal board reversed on the law and the initial determination of the Industrial Commissioner reinstated, without costs. Foster, P.J., Heffernan, Brewster, Bergan and Coon, JJ., concur.