Opinion
Argued June 9, 1978
June 30, 1978.
Unemployment compensation — Voluntary termination — Cause of a necessitous and compelling nature — Unemployment Compensation Law, Act 1936, December 5, P.L. (1937) 2897 — Dissatisfaction with wages and working conditions.
1. An employe voluntarily terminating employment without a cause of a necessitous and compelling nature is ineligible for benefits under the Unemployment Compensation Law, Act 1936, December 5, P.L. (1937) 2897. [381-2]
2. Dissatisfaction with wages, hours and working conditions does not constitute a necessitous and compelling case for voluntarily terminating employment, and an employe so terminating employment is ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits particularly when evidence establishes that the wages, hours and conditions of the job were those usually attached to such positions with similar businesses. [382-3]
Argued June 9, 1978, before Judges WILKINSON, JR., MENCER and ROGERS, sitting as a panel of three.
Appeal, No. 552 C.D. 1977, from the Order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review in case of In Re: Claim of William M. Remington, No. B-140363.
Application with the Bureau of Employment Security for unemployment compensation benefits. Application denied. Applicant appealed to the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review. Denial affirmed. Applicant appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Held: Affirmed.
Howard L. Rubenfield, for petitioner.
William J. Kennedy, Assistant Attorney General, with him Sydney Reuben, Assistant Attorney General, and Robert P. Kane, Attorney General, for respondent.
William M. Remington has appealed an order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review which affirmed a referee's denial of benefits because Remington had left his employment without cause of a necessitous and compelling nature. See Section 402 (b)(1) of the Unemployment Compensation Law (Law), Act of December 5, 1936, Second Ex. Sess., P.L. (1937) 2897, as amended, 43 P. S. § 802(b)(1).
Remington was employed for approximately eight years as chief engineer for a small radio station located in Corry, Erie County. Remington voluntarily quit his job on July 20, 1976. A referee, after hearing, found that Remington's asserted reasons for quitting were not causes of a necessitous and compelling nature. The Board of Review affirmed and this appeal followed. We affirm.
An unemployment compensation claimant who voluntarily leaves his employment has the burden of proving that his action was for causes of a necessitous and compelling nature. Aluminum Company of America v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 15 Pa. Commw. 78, 324 A.2d 854 (1974). Remington, who had formed the intention to leave his employment before July 20, 1976, was dissatisfied with many things about what he called "basically . . . an unsuitable job." At the referee's hearing Remington expressed dissatisfaction with his wages, with the fact that as the station's only engineer he was on constant call, with his lack of authority to make purchases of things needed in his work, with the number and variety of the duties imposed on him, with the employer's unwillingness to provide a helper, and with the practice of another employee of opening his, Remington's mail.
Remington's testimony described only his dissatisfaction with the wages, hours and working conditions of his employment. Discontent with one's job is not necessitous and compelling cause for leaving within the meaning of Section 402(b)(1). Stalc v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review, 13 Pa. Commw. 131, 318 A.2d 398 (1974). Furthermore, Remington's employer adduced evidence at the hearing which tended to show that the wages, hours and conditions described by Remington were those usually attached to the job of chief engineer of a small radio station. Finally, in Unemployment Compensation Board of Review v. Buckley, 23 Pa. Commw. 174, 350 A.2d 885 (1976), we held that multiple causes, none compelling or necessitous, did not in combination become one qualifying cause.
Order affirmed.
ORDER
AND NOW, this 30th day of June, 1978, the order of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review dated October 18, 1977 affirming a referee's denial of benefits to William M. Remington is hereby affirmed.