Settlement agreement in unemployment lawsuit in doubt, lawmakers call for action from GDOL

ATLANTA - In a news conference at the state Capitol Tuesday, members of the House Democratic Caucus called on the Georgia Department of Labor to resolve any outstanding unemployment claims.

"We are standing here asking the Department of Labor to please get the people's claims settled and get 'em settled today," said state Rep. Sandra Scott, D-Rex.

The lawmakers called the news conference to celebrate the news that a judge granted preliminary approval of a settlement agreement last week in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Atlanta law firm Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore against the Georgia Department of Labor and Commissioner Mark Butler in 2021. 

In a news release about the settlement agreement Thursday, the SPLC said, "under the settlement, GDOL will make multiple improvements to its current system of processing unemployment claims to deal with the extreme delays that have plagued the state agency since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic."

"While GDOL claims there is no current backlog in making payments for unemployment benefits, we know there are still hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their appeals to be heard, with many having no idea when their appeals will occur. The changes agreed to in this settlement should allow people to get their claims and appeals processed quicker while keeping them informed about what is going on," said Jamie Rush, senior staff attorney for the Economic Justice Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

That prompted attorneys for the GDOL to file a motion the next day to withdraw from the settlement agreement.

In a statement to FOX 5, Commissioner Butler said:

"The statements made by SPLC and Bondurant, Mixson about the proposed agreement and GDOL are false and misleading. The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) did not have hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their unemployment claims to be processed or an appeal to be heard in 2021 as mentioned in the release. In fact, 95% of all eligible claimants had no issues at all receiving unemployment benefits. GDOL has filed an emergency motion to withdraw consent to the preliminary approval of the settlement agreement.  It is not fair to the hard-working employees of GDOL who have created solutions to the many challenges we encountered during the pandemic to have the plaintiffs’ attorneys take credit for those solutions.  GDOL will continue to work with the Plaintiffs’ attorneys to find common ground in this lawsuit, but not to the detriment of the men and women who have worked timelessly for the past two years on issuing over $23 billion in unemployment insurance and pandemic relief benefits to almost 2 million Georgians in need.  In retrospect, we feel it was a mistake to include solutions in the settlement agreement that were already in progress before the lawsuit was even filed. Those projects already underway included website and portal enhancements like the newly launched Claim Status Tracker that tells a claimant where they are in the claim process and My UI portal improvements that will include options as to how a claimant prefers to receive correspondence.  GDOL also had enhanced its phone systems to use artificial intelligence to streamline phone calls and added a customer relationship management system that allows different live agents to access data and call histories of applicants and other users further enhancing the customer experience.  The agency is in the process of automating the validity of appeal requests to reduce wait times. This work is not a byproduct of the SPLC lawsuit, but instead a testament to the continued dedication of GDOL employees who have always worked to support their fellow Georgians. 

"The plaintiffs’ attorneys wanted GDOL to announce the opening of the career centers that took place in Fall of 2021, to provide GDOL with list of individuals with outstanding issues, GDOL to host Constituent and Stakeholder Engagement Groups, and GDOL to Notify claimants if an appeal request is invalid."

The settlement agreement was scheduled to be finalized September 1, but now a hearing will have to be held about the GDOL's motion to withdraw.

In the meantime, state lawmakers said Georgians cannot wait for their benefits.

"Please know--to all the constituents in the State of Georgia--that we will continue to work for you until all unemployment issues have been settled," said Rep. Scott.