By Moffat                                             H.B. No. 2275
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act; defining
    1-3  temporary help firm and temporary employee.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  The Texas Unemployment Compensation Act (Article
    1-6  5221b-1 et seq. Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes) is amended by adding
    1-7  the following to Article 5221b-3(a):
    1-8        DISQUALIFICATION FOR BENEFITS
    1-9        An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:
   1-10        (a)  If the Commission finds that he has left his last work
   1-11  voluntarily without good cause connected with his work.  The
   1-12  disqualification continues until the claimant has returned to
   1-13  employment and either worked for six weeks or earned wages equal to
   1-14  six times his weekly benefit amount, unless the individual left
   1-15  work to move with a spouse from the area in which the individual
   1-16  worked.  In that case, the disqualification shall be for not less
   1-17  than six (6) nor more than twenty-five (25) benefit periods
   1-18  following the filing of a valid claim, as determined by the
   1-19  Commission according to the circumstances in each case.  Provided
   1-20  no claimant shall be disqualified because of his or her leaving due
   1-21  to medically verified illness of the claimant or the claimant's
   1-22  minor child, injury, disability, or pregnancy and is still
   1-23  available for work. A medically verified illness of a minor child
    2-1  only prevents disqualification under this subsection if there is no
    2-2  reasonable alternative care available to the child and the employer
    2-3  refused to allow the employee a reasonable amount of time off
    2-4  during the illness.  Military personnel who do not reenlist may not
    2-5  be considered to have left work voluntarily without good cause
    2-6  connected with work.  An individual who is partially unemployed and
    2-7  who resigns that employment to accept other employment that the
    2-8  individual reasonably believes will increase the individual's
    2-9  weekly wage is not qualified under this subsection.  A temporary
   2-10  employee of a temporary help firm will be deemed to have left his
   2-11  last work voluntarily without good cause connected with his work if
   2-12  the temporary employee does not contact the temporary help firm for
   2-13  reassignment upon completion of an assignment.  A temporary
   2-14  employee will not be deemed to have left his work voluntarily
   2-15  without good cause connected with his work unless the temporary
   2-16  employee has been advised of the obligation to contact the
   2-17  temporary help firm upon completion of assignments and that
   2-18  unemployment benefits may be denied for failure to do so.
   2-19        SECTION 2.  The Texas Unemployment Compensation Act (Article
   2-20  5221b-17, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes) is amended by adding the
   2-21  following sections:
   2-22        DEFINITIONS
   2-23        As used in this Act, unless the context clearly requires
   2-24  otherwise:
   2-25        (1)  "Temporary help firm" means a firm or business that
    3-1  employs individuals for the purpose of assigning them to the
    3-2  temporary help firm's clients to support or supplement the client's
    3-3  work force in work situations such as employee absences, temporary
    3-4  skill shortages, seasonal work loads, and special assignments and
    3-5  projects.  For the purposes of this Act, the temporary help firm is
    3-6  deemed to be the employer of the temporary employee.
    3-7        (2)  "Temporary employee" means an individual employed by a
    3-8  temporary help firm for the purpose of being assigned to work for
    3-9  the clients of a temporary help firm.
   3-10        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
   3-11        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   3-12  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   3-13  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   3-14  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   3-15  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.